Alex Sudheim
Imagine pulling into the sweetest barrel you’ve ever dreamed of, then hitting pause and staying there forever. The surreal quality of this image is enhanced by the fact that, when looking out the far side of the tube you see not the ocean, but a giant video screen with yourself projected on it, beneath which a live rock band are in full cry. Bronzed babes in bikinis cruise past with cocktails in their hands, skateboarders fly through the air and kids with ice-creams are staring right back at you.
Seem unreal? Not anymore. Durban’s Gateway, the recently completed largest mall in the southern hemisphere, is home to the Durbinicus Southafricus (D-Rex) the pride and joy of the Wave House. The latter describes itself as “The Royal Palace of Youth Culture”, which might all seem a little exaggerated until you check out its specs.
For one thing, the D-Rex is internationally unprecedented. It’s the world’s first free-standing artificial wave with both a left- and right-hand barrel. It’s also of staggering dimensions: to achieve the most perfect 3m tube possible breaking ceaselessly in exactly the same spot, California’s Tom Lochtefeld, president of Wave Loch, the company which built the beast, has designed a creation of soft rubber-padded concrete across which shoots a million litres of water a minute at 50km/h generated by eight massive pumps powered by a massive 1 720 horsepower.
Lochtefeld explains: “To duplicate an ocean wave of this height in an artificial environment is not feasible. My idea was to recreate the rideable portion of an ocean wave using a ‘supercritical’ sheetflow water flowing uphill over a padded wave-form. The D-Rex double wave form is something I’ve thought about since the days when I was experimenting with bathtubs, swimming pools, and the hydraulic lab at Scripps [Institution of Oceanography]. One just need break with the prejudice of nature.”
Like a genetic wave engineer, Lochtefeld pursued and created the most flawless form possible. So, though you can’t paddle out to backline and pull your head out of the sand when you get dumped, you can pretty much drive to a shopping mall, but on your baggies and walk straight into the most pristine, aquiline tube imaginable and, theoretically, stay there for ever.
But it’s not all that easy. Though you can have fun on the smaller simulated beachbreaks at Wave House, D-Rex, as the name suggests, is not to be messed with.
Aside from being equivalent to the critical section of a 3m ocean wave a serious concentration of gravity and pressure it takes some getting used to. Especially if you’re a surfer: you ride a hard, foam board with no skegs, so you’re entirely reliant on rail-control to prevent spectacular wipe-outs and make it out the other end. Lose the rail and you’re flat on your face, dig it in too hard and its over the falls.
Yet this challenge has proved to have hugely beneficial spin-offs: this style of riding has levelled the playing-field for surfers, skateboarders, snowboarders, wakeboarders and skimboarders and has consequently spawned “the ultimate boardsport” flowriding.
Some of the world’s hottest flow-riders are participating in the South African leg of the Siemens Mobile Wave Tour at the Wave House, where, until December 2, the likes of world-famous skateboarder Andy MacDonald, champion skimboarder Bill Bryan and Hawaiian big-wave legend Rush Randle will put D-Rex and themselves through their paces.