When mad keen surfer, Tom Lochtefeld, sold his FlowRider technology to Whitewater West in 2014, he could have kicked back and spent the rest of his days at the beach.
Instead, Lochtefeld – the inventor of the Sheetflow technology that had revolutionised surfing attractions and the brains behind FlowRider and the Wave House surf venue brand – went back to square one, driven by a passion to create a new evolution in artificial surfing waves.
“Ever since I got into waterparks in the 80s I’ve had a mission,” he tells me, talking from his home in California. “I sold FlowRider because I wanted to focus on pure surf. I had a vision for a product line that would be commercially viable and create the most epic surfing waves in the world. I wanted to go for gold, so that’s what I decided to do,” he says.
The day after selling FlowRider, Lochtefeld announced the launch of Surf Loch, a new company dedicated to creating something he’s been focused on since the early days – a true deep-water wave.
At the time, a lack of certain pieces of technology meant the concept wasn’t immediately viable, but after years of trial and error, Lochtefeld and his team have finally created the Surf Loch Surf Pool, and he’s confident it will revolutionise the industry.
The new wave technology – developed together with Siemens – uses pressurised air within custom-designed concrete chambers to create surfable waves. “Quantum level improvement in computer processing with a corresponding reduction in cost has enabled us to generate pretty much any wave that occurs in the ocean using pneumatics,” says Lochtefeld.
Under construction
Now Surf Loch has 10 wave pools in development, with construction underway for a major park in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, due to open in spring 2024 – and a ‘new style wave park’ featuring Surf Loch technology due to open in Palm Springs, California this year.
The Rotterdam attraction, called RiF010, will be an urban wave pool featuring Surf Loch waves in a disused 12th century canal in the centre of the city. Capable of generating a wave every seven seconds, it will be suitable for surfers of all abilities, as well as kayakers and bodyboarders.
The origins of the Palm Springs project go back to 2018 when Lochtefeld entered Escrow to purchase the defunct Wet ‘n’ Wild waterpark in Palm Springs. Arranging to sell to outside investor, Pono Partners, Lochtefeld reserved the right to build a 16-caisson surf pool (three times larger than the original wavepool) featuring overhead barrels to appeal to the best surfers in Southern California. Newly named, the Palm Springs Surf Club, this revamped facility is set to open in summer 2023.
BITTEN BY THE BUG
Growing up in La Jolla, California, Lochtefeld caught the surfing bug early. “It’s kind of a big deal to me,” he says, in what feels like something of an understatement.
“That experience of the wave – in my life there’s been nothing more compelling than taking that initial drop, then feeling your ability to control, carve and manoeuvre your board on a moving dynamic wave face,” he says. “Once you get bitten by that bug, it’s a real driver.”
A talented athlete, Lochtefeld was offered a football scholarship at Stanford University, but decided to go where the waves were, studying first at the University of California, Berkeley and then the University of San Diego Law School.
In the 1970s, Lochtefeld worked in real estate in San Diego, but he always knew he wanted to make a career out of his passion for surfing.
“The most practical way to get into that market was through waterparks,” he says. “I joined forces with [developer] Bryant Morris, and we created the Raging Waters waterpark in LA.
“I was so excited when we opened the wave pool there – I brought my surfboard, all fired up, but when I tried to surf it, I couldn’t believe it – it was a piece of garbage. You couldn’t catch the wave at all. I just said, ‘are you kidding me? This is such a waste’.
“The technology wasn’t there to enable a surfing attraction at that time, so I said to myself, ‘OK, now I’ve got a mission to create the perfect wave’.”
Back to the drawing board
Lochtefeld’s vision was to bring the joy and passion of surfing to as many people as possible, no matter where they were. He sold his share in Raging Waters in 1987 and spent the next few years studying waves, experimenting with wave machines and developing patents.
While it soon became apparent that the technology wasn’t yet available to create an economically viable deep water surf pool, Lochtefeld realised that a surfer only actually needs the surface of the wave to ride on.
He teamed up with the hydraulics lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego to create the FlowRider, a ‘sheet wave’ surf simulator that pumps thousands of gallons of water a minute across a small area to create a stationary wave with a curling lip.
The first FlowRider was launched at the Schlitterbahn waterpark in New Braunfels, Texas, in 1991, followed by the launch of the FlowBarrel sheet wave at Summerland Resort in Norway two years later.
A huge tour with Swatch and Siemens FlowTours introduced the sport of flowboarding to a global audience, with pro board athletes including Kelly Slater, Tony Hawk and Terje Hakonsen helping to raise its profile.
“It was a blast,” says Lochtefeld. “We went to nine different venues around the world – it was just this massive party. They spent $2m on each event – we had mega rock and roll concerts, millions of people would come by. All the surfers were blown away.”
The tour proved what Lochtefeld knew – that the value of the wave was more than just the throughput of people riding it. “I knew that there was a visual spectator component that needed to be counted and also there was additional revenue – F&B, retail, events – that could go with it,” he says.
Lochtefeld developed the Wave House entertainment venues as a showcase for his surf technologies. A mix of California surf-inspired sport, music, entertainment, food, drink and retail, with the FlowRider and FlowBarrel as the centrepiece attractions, the first Wave House launched in 2001 in Durban, and the concept quickly gained popularity around the world.
“Wave House was such a show,” says Lochtefeld. “We made a lot of money – Wave House San Diego was turning over US$7m in F&B alone in a four month period. It was great business experience and we had so much fun doing it.”
Facing the competition
It’s fair to say that Lochtefeld has lost none of his drive, and while he enjoys reminiscing about the past, his focus is firmly on what’s ahead. When he started out, there was no surf pool market – now the global market is substantial and growing all the time.
He doesn’t seem phased by the presence of other suppliers, saying. “Competition is the most positive thing you could have. It drives innovation and if there’s other tech out there that’s better than ours, then those companies absolutely deserve to succeed, but I also have 100 per cent confidence in our products.”
Adding residential
As for the future of the sector as a whole, Lochtefeld likens it to the evolution of the golf and ski resort markets. “It’s going to be very similar,” he says. “A surf pool is much physically smaller and the capital cost is equal to or less than a golf or ski resort, yet you can get the same lifestyle benefit that ties into ancillary revenue streams – F&B and retail – and the residential component, which is going to be a big element going forward.
“Adding residential changes the whole dynamic. The surf pool isn’t the be all and end all – it becomes an amenity to anchor a much bigger development. That’s the direction this market will go in,” he concludes.
