Experimentingon new technologydeep in the desertis practically an American institution. Trinity, Edwards Air Force Base, Area 51, and the NSA’s massive data collection center in Utah are evidence that it’s easier to test and deploy oddities of human endeavor where no one else is watching. Even Kelly Slater specifically cited privacy as one of the main factors that led him and his partners to choose their 11-acre wave pool’s location in Lemoore, California. Rumor has itthey also hired a requisite guard detail, populated by ex-military operatorsto keep prying eyes away from the experiment.
The yield from that years-long prototype phaseis known, in its current incarnation, as the Surf Ranch.Co-owned and operated by the and the (WSL), the 700-yard-long pool—and its attendant outbuildings and mechanical apparatuses—sits roughly 100 miles straight inland from the Pacific Ocean and iscapable of churning out flawless, mechanical waves at the rate of about one every three minutes.
To find it, I drove along Highway 41 through 60 miles of desert, occasionallyinterrupted bygas stations, Denny’s food chains, and other oases—reminders of how far one might have to crawl for help should the radiator blow a gasket. At intervals, banners hungfrom derelict trailers, specifically referencingthe distribution of water stocks:
California is Running on Empty.
Vote to #Build more DAMstorage.
Vote to Make California Great Again!
Ask Congress if Growing Food is a Waste of Resources.
Eventually, I turned onto a side roadlined with doublewide trailers and a concrete-recycling yard. From my research (and social media aggregation), I’d gathered that the wave is generated by a train-like conveyance, which sits on rails above the surface and makes passes, back and forth, across the length of the watercourse. A foil, fixed at each end of the train, runs through the water to generate “swell,” which then breaks over a series of bottom contours that were modeled by Slater and a Ph.D. in geophysical fluid dynamics named Adam Fincham, among others, to produce ideal surf conditions.
Because of its superiority to other wave pools, and its ability to more or less mirror a level of perfection that, until now, was only found in nature (and only given a rare confluence of hydrology and geology), the place has been a major source of speculation and among surfers and the surf media.
I was there forthe WSL Founders’ Cup, an exhibition contest designed as part pre-run for the comingSurf Ranch Open, a scheduled for September, and part pitch aimed at selling the tech to the 2020 Olympics in Japan, the first Games scheduled to include surfing. The latter was especially apparent given the team format, which seemed to be deliberately catering to Olympic organizers, pitting groups of five surfers (three male and two female)against each other in a bracket system. There wereteams representing the U.S., Australia, Brazil, and Europe, plus an all-encompassing World team, made up of surfers from South Africa, Japan, and French Polynesia.Slater also openly discussed the Olympics in Friday’spre-event press conference, dropping hints that he might view a chance to compete in Japan as the swan song to a 40-year career in competitive surfing. By then he’d be 48 years old.
The event was being promotedas the “birth of stadium surfing” throughcoverage on CNN, CBS, and other networks around the world,replete with co-branding from WSL sponsoring partner Michelob Ultra Pure Gold, a low-calorie beertargeting consumers with an “.” I had to see what had risen in the desert from these disparate parts of tech, Americana, and surf culture.
My impression of the pool as a technological marvel, however, was decidedly underwhelming at first glance. When I arrived, the engineers and the event staff were between waves and, aside from a slight ultramarine tint (from bottom-paint and chlorine) the pool looked a lot like the irrigation canals I’d passed on the drive in to Lemoore, aberrations themselves: stagnant tracts of open water to the horizon, their banks lined with egrets and other birds typically associated with coastal environs.
I watched the sunlight on the surface for a few minutesunti