h a l f b a k e r yI like this idea, only I think it should be run by the government.
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A large pool with jets pumping in water at the correct angles above a drain that maintains a large whirlpool.
As you surf around the edges of whirlpool using the current to slingshot past or zip around the bowl a couple times.
When you do fall in, you go out the large rubber padded drain hole at
the bottom, landing on a large net with the water coming down over you.
You crawl off the net and make your topside again for another round.
All the water pouring through the net is pumped back into the pool at the same rate it is drained.
Wave Loch
http://www.waveloch.com/flash/index.htm
Similar. [daseva, Feb 20 2006]
The Whirpool Surfing Cycle of Life Concept
http://bz.pair.com/fun/wpSurf.html
[monstrous 281KB image] [bristolz, Feb 21 2006]
Bristolz' missing link restored
https://web.archive...com/fun/wpSurf.html
[bhumphrys, Nov 15 2025]
Downhill, not Uphill
https://youtu.be/Zf...si=OLvCxSyRKlBn0D71
The scariest example. [minoradjustments, Nov 15 2025]
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Carefully, I hope. As a boy I had my nose broken by the lost board of a surfer in a non-surfing area. I have a healthy respect for and fear of surfboards. |
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To this day a dolphin coming out of a wave sends me diving to the bottom until my senses overpower my reflexes. |
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Make it cylindrical and horizontal, and you can let people shoot the tube from the comfort of a theme park. |
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alternative title: plug-hole surfing. [+] |
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There's a rapid not unlike this on the Rouge River, Quebec, only I wish I could escape through the bottom. Would this require an arched surfboard? |
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I'm not seeing anything surfable in this as described. Give a better explanation of what the "correct angles" are and I'll take off this fishbone. |
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When your bath is draining, and a piece of lint or whatever slingshots past the whirlpool above the drain, it accelerates as it goes by. This would enable the rider to stand and ride his board, cut a quick turn, and slingshot past again. |
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Spacecraft use this technique to gain speed and change direction in space as well. |
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You could just do this with rotors,
cheaply. I initially read this as
"Whirlpool Surfing Addiction" because
of the idea after it. |
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I can see this being useful for folks
trying to learn how to surf. The perfect,
consistent wave would allow one to
work on board handling etc. |
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I couldn't ever figure out what to do about the surfboard. Does it go through the drain, too? Seems a bit dangerous but I couldn't find a way around it, I did consider tethers. |
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If the board was wider then drain it could be retrieved between runs with a pole and hook. |
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I still don't get it. In a whirlpool, the water is going downhill. Surfing is based on water going uphill, which only happens in a few, odd places. |
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In a big, smooth whirlpool, a good surfer might be able to get a few boosts, but I'm saying they'd never get going long enough to stand up. Maybe, if you gave it a very distinct top with an abrupt edge, and got a good surfer on a quick board, maybe. Mind, I'd like to play in there with a kayak--there would be some good eddy turns, maybe, but not much surfing. |
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A big whirlpool might be modified to hold a surfable wave at one place, but it wouldn't be as good as any other surf pool/machine. |
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"Surfing is based on water going uphill" - erm, actually, no - waves are caused by the water getting shallower, which is not quite the same thing as going uphill. But your objection probably still holds. |
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Okay, I may have phrased that poorly for the sake of brevity, but I do know that the water is going uphill on the front face of a standing wave in a river. And, just to confuse things more, standing waves are often caused by the water getting deeper. |
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The water at the front of a wave is going up, and the water at the back is going down--that circle is in every diagram about ocean wave motion. That is what a wave is--up/down motion of water. |
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At the beach, as the energy of a wave hits the slope upwards, it rises and crests. That crest is certainly higher than the wave was out on the ocean (where it was going up and down a bit less). When the wave collapses at the beach itself, foamy water goes sliding up the sand, uphill. |
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I'll change and say "Surfing is done on water going upward." |
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From a surfer: you can only surf if you can DROP into and maintain your forward (shoreward) motion on a wave's slope that occurs where the water is mounting upward and has nowhere to go but up. The wave continuing toward shore (or reef) is maintained by current and wind; the set and the fetch in ever shallower water. |
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All surfing goes downhill and depends on gravity and the forward motion of the wave to create, increase, and maintain the slope. You are ALWAYS going downhill unless you use your accumulated speed to DEFY gravity and cut back UP the wave, reentering the downhill after 'shredding.' |
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The speed of the surfer, which is ALWAYS higher than the forward motion of the wave, is generated by carving laterally across the face of the wave, creating a longer slope that allows extracting more energy from the wave. |
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If you break with the wave or head directly toward shore you can only go as fast as the wave itself. That's not modern surfing, it is floating on your air mattress or learning how to surf. Boards are designed to get the most energy from the particular wave size and motion. The OG surfers used 12'+ boards and rode swells, not breaking waves into shore. Then they discovered that shortening the board, adding fins and proprietary shapes would allow faster, more maneuverable use of the wave energy if they zipped across the face; the birth of TUBING. |
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See the link for the longest DROP on the planet. Nobody's going uphill. |
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