The Future of Wave Pools in Hawaii When you think of wave pools and the places that “need” them, you don’t often think of Hawaii. After all, we have one of the best swell windows on the planet, and enjoy consistent, large swells from the north all winter and waves ranging from surfable to epic from the south all summer. Considering how much surf we get naturally, it wouldn’t make any sense to build wave pools here, right? Not so fast. As it turns out, there are four (yes, four!) potential wave pool projects currently in development for Oahu. Some of these have been in the works for years, while others are relatively recent developments. The longest-running project started around 2014, when investors started the ball rolling to get permits and land on which to build The Endless Summer Resort. This resort would be built around a circular wave pool that was originally intended to have a Greg Webber-inspired wave that did laps around the island in the middle of the pool. The design was then changed to use a different type of wave pool technology called PerfectSwell, which is the concept that is currently used at the pools in...

Over the past few months, it seems like the world has gone crazy for wave pools. Between the Founder’s Cup and then the world tour event at Slater’s Surf Ranch, the multiple air shows and air contest at Waco’s BSR water park, and then the subsequent amoeba scare in Waco, wave pools have been all over the news lately. And here at Hawaiian South Shore, we are even getting in on the action, with our store manger Brett scheduled to visit the Surf Ranch in December. This week yet another chapter unfolded in the battle of the wave pools, as Australia’s first pool opened for beta testing. A collaboration between Mark Occhilupo, Barton Lynch, and a company called Surf Lakes, this surf pond (for lack of a better descriptor is located in a mining town called Yeppoon near Brisbane, and features a brand new type of wave pool technology that we haven’t seen anywhere else. Rather than using a foil on a track to produce waves (like Wavegarden and the Surf Ranch) or chambered air (like the BSR pool), Surf Lakes uses a huge mechanized plunger shaped a bit like an inverted mushroom. The plunger is powered by a crazy...