Ipswich: Australia's newest international surf destination

[dUg]

THE Gold Coast is locked in a race for Australia's first surfing wave pool - with Ipswich.

Yes, that surfing Mecca west of Brisbane - and about 100km from the nearest surfing beach - is in the frame to host the country's first purpose-built wave pool for surfing.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/ipsw ... z247u86sUy

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/ipsw ... 6454413462

[gibber]

HipswichI

[alakaboo]

I would pay cash money to see it happen.
Mainly to annoy Tom Tate.

[Nick Carroll]

got contacts in the Ipswich wave pool building business have ya fong

let us take a flying fcuken guess at what has really occurred here.

Some cnut wants to get money out of people for something. So he or his agencies has fed a story to the newspapers in order to promote it.

Everybody knows that when something is in the newspapers, it must be real. So this cnut will soon be rolling in someone else's money.

Not.

[Nick Carroll]

fongy, I suspect all wave pools will do is:

a) waste fossil fuel sourced energy better spent on other things
b) create a payment system within surfing, ie pay per wave
c) create more surfers, with less water skills than ever before.

Or maybe they'll just go broke, because the waves will be so shit compared with the real thing.

Most likely: they'll never actually be built. After all it's fcuken ridiculous. On the one side you have the entire south west Pacific Ocean plus hundreds of kilometres of accessible coastline. On the other: a pool.

In any case: why anybody thinks by making more waves in a highly urbanised environment that you're gonna reduce the number of surfers has always completely fcuken baffled me. All the currently available evidence points in exactly the opposite direction.

Of course it's quite possible that if built they may create a new subgenre of surfer, the Pool Surfer, like those guys who specialise in flowrider surfing. But I bet their surfing would be pretty boring to watch...and to do? a ha ha ha go for it.

[steve shearer]

In any case: why anybody thinks by making more waves in a highly urbanised environment that you're gonna reduce the number of surfers has always completely fcuken baffled me. All the currently available evidence points in exactly the opposite direction.

x a million.

Webber's pool built in the Hunter at $3 bucks a wave. That's 30 bucks for a ten wave session, lining up with the other retards to pay to play.

Or go to Ipswich or Pimpana for the same deal.

fcuk that shite.

Every reason I go surfing is to stay away from that bullshitt.

[el rancho]

got contacts in the Ipswich wave pool building business have ya fong

let us take a flying fcuken guess at what has really occurred here.

Some cnut wants to get money out of people for something. So he or his agencies has fed a story to the newspapers in order to promote it.

Everybody knows that when something is in the newspapers, it must be real. So this cnut will soon be rolling in someone else's money.

Not.

wow sort of sounds like Greg Webber and Swellnet.



rofl at ipswich. land of the retards.
If they get EB Games, TAB and Bunnings to be corporate partners they can't lose.

[alakaboo]

If you fall off, can you get a refund?

I've been approached by some other groups to do feasibility assessments. If one of them stumps up some serious money I'll consider fleecing them, but they are just based on nonsense assumptions.
I can't understand why you would ever do it more than once. The business model is massively flawed. Not to mention the other factors.

[el rancho]

so, is webber massivley underestimating the energy costs to power this thing?

with the carbon tax (yes) and power prices already being high, there is a few people questioning that cost alone.

I suppose that's why he was hinting at that cradle-to-grave brand loyalty with quiksilver or billabong or whatever.

the quiksilver surfing experience.

[alakaboo]

Dunno any of the details about webber's gig. I mean, I've read the articles and watched some videos, but I'm not privy to anything else.
I suspect lack of interest (i.e. income) will kill off most proposals far more quickly than power bills.

[Grooter]

They'd be great on flat days......

[steve shearer]

If you like lining up with a million sweaty retards to play in the chlorine.

I'd rather mow the lawn, go flathead fishing or eat a piece of fried dog caca.

[crabmeat thompson]

If that was the only surfing I could do, I'd legitimately give up surfing.

I'd take up running or cycling embark on a career specialising in anus bleaching rather then surf in weak, chlorinated, funked up slop.

[alakaboo]

If you had serious cash, like richkidsofinstagram sort of money, would you be tempted to make a private one?

I still wouldn't and I think that is part of the problem.

I met a guy in the States with that sort of money, some sort of finance whizkid.
He was about 30, worked 6 months a year for shits and giggles, spent the rest of the time surfing and skiing and doing whatever he wanted. 2 months in Indo on his own boat with helicopter, 2 months heliskiing in Alaska and 2 months visiting cool cultural places, doing crazy hikes and mountain climbs and stuff like swimming with whalesharks. Seemed pretty happy with it. And he wasn't nearly as much of a douche as you'd expect.

[still here]

Always grates me when people use the word " retard "in a derogatory fashion .
I know it's ignorance ...... But it's also insensitive , passé , and quite frankly unimaginative !

[carvin marvin]

The impression I get after reading all the information about Webbers wave pools is that building wave pools is a way of raising the funds to then build man made surfing reefs off our coastline, he has clearly stated that the wave pools will never be as good as surfing in the ocean.
After reading all the ideas that were put forward on Swellnets surfing reef design forums (which for some reason they have now shut down) it is quite clear there is a whole new frontier for surfing to move into, for example there are places on the North Coast with the offshore bathymetry where it would be possible to build a right hand surfbreak creating rides almost as long as the superbank. There are places were you could build 'A' frame reefs north of headlands with south wind protection, that work on south swells and which compliment the existing surf break ( for example Crescent Head which will be 2' and fat out on the point on a south swell, while a few hundred metres up the beach it is 6 foot and closing out).

Then there are places like the Cronulla beach experiment where the only option is the creation of an offshore sandslug to create peakier waves instead of close outs, if successful a method for stopping the sandslug from changing shape and eroding away makes sense.

Was checking out the Nimbin skatepark recently, residents formed a committee and applied for and got a $270,000 grant from the Government to build it, it is regarded as one of the best skateparks in Australia and now there is a whole stoked skate culture being created, skaters even travel down from the Gold Coast on weekends to use it.

When you think of the amount of revenue the government has got from surfing products over the last 50 years, maybe it's time Australian surfers got together and asked the government for some money to build surfing reefs and wavepools.
There must be at least 50 surfers in Australia with engineering minds that understand the possibilies of surfing reef technology. Imagine if some sort of website was set up, and all surfers with engineering minds could collaborate and give their ideas for free to surfing, and bascally DESIGN THE FUTURE OF SURFING.
This spirit of collaboration, and sharing of ideas happened on the Swellnet forum, it just needs to happen on a bigger scale.

[2nd Reef]

After reading all the ideas that were put forward on Swellnets surfing reef design forums (which for some reason they have now shut down)

Just a database issue, Marvin, it ain't shut down. Hopefully we'll have it fixed by the end of the week.

As for wavepools, there's been some more news on that front. Maybe even enough news to put a story on Swellnet.

Hello El Rancho!

[Nick Carroll]

Was checking out the Nimbin skatepark recently, residents formed a committee and applied for and got a $270,000 grant from the Government to build it, it is regarded as one of the best skateparks in Australia and now there is a whole stoked skate culture being created, skaters even travel down from the Gold Coast on weekends to use it.

Yep but here is a big "but" for everyone on this score. Two "buts" in one actually.

The Australian coastline is not a block of land owned by the council and dedicated to a skatepark. It does not belong to surfers. It isn't ours to do what we like with or to suit ourselves. We can't consider artificial coastal structures in isolation from the entire rest of the Australian population nor from the common permanent public ownership of the coast. We also can't pretend other people are stakeless in this or that surfers haven't fought tooth and nail over the years to protect parts of the coast from the very sort of invasive processes being suggested here.

We can't ignore the fact that the coast is in the process of significant natural change as a result of global warming and associated sea level rises and storm action, which means almost any change we consider today will be rendered meaningless or worse in 50 to 100 years' time. Which may seem like a long time, until you recall that many surfers here and elsewhere (and many other Australians for that matter) are continually lambasting Governments around the nation for not taking a similarly long view.

We can't ignore the fact that many of us have spent a lot of time and energy (not me included much yet btw) getting the national Surfing Reserves system up and running, the basis of which is protection and rehabilitation of natural environments around surfing locations, not deliberate artificial alterations of same to please ourselves.

If we are to take ourselves seriously as an environmentally concerned subset of Australian citizens, then there are far bigger issues here to be taken into account than our own greed for more waves, especially on a coastline which is outrageously blessed with same and outside a comparative few spots, largely astonishingly uncrowded.

If you're seriously concerned with helping direct the future of surfing, there are many great ways of doing that without going down this highly dubious and ultimately I suspect massively time-wasting road.