Perfect wave just a push of a button away

Dr Kerry Black says years of researching seabeds and what makes them the best wave has paid off. Picture / Amos Chapple

Riding the perfect wave in an indoor surf pool could soon be possible thanks to some experimenting in a Waikato cow-shed.

Raglan-based company Surf Pools is fine-tuning its computerised surfing reef that will make waves in a surf pool in Florida this year.

With the click of a button, surfers will be able to ride classic Californian, Hawaiian, Indonesian or Australian breaks in the 30m by 75m pool - about the size of four Olympic swimming pools.

This is made possible by an adjustable pool floor which adapts to different reef shapes and combines with varying water pressures to produce a range of wave directions and heights of up to 2.4m.

Managing director Dr Kerry Black said the technology had the potential to change the nature of surfing and bring it into the stadium era.

"Until now no one has been able to create waves at indoor pools that experienced surfers would call powerful or high quality," he said.

"Our innovation has the potential to turn surfing into a stadium sport where spectators can watch the world's top surfers compete on an international circuit.

Surf Pools is the partner company of Artificial Surf Reefs, which specialises in designing and building artificial reefs in the ocean, and has created the $1.2 million surfing reef to be built at Mt Maunganui.

After years of researching seabeds and what makes the best waves, the team of marine scientists are now applying their expertise to indoor wave pools.

Since the world's first surfing pool was created in the 1960s, there had been little development in the technology, said Black.

A keen surfer, he has been working on the computerised surf reef for about five years, and testing it in a 3m by 2m scale model of the pool with the help of a $500,000 grant from Technology New Zealand.

"It's never going to be a substitute for traditional surfing, but as an addition it's fantastic," he said.

"You can go there after work and practice on waves generated just for you, and with a fixed number of people at a time so it will never be crowded like the beaches, he said.

"It will make surfing much more accessible and improve the competitive aspect of the sport, which has always been remote and reliant on changing beach conditions."

The market for surf pools was surprisingly big, he said, with 20 expected to be built in the United States in the next year.

"The demand for eco-recreation has gone off hugely, and I guess we're tapping into that."

Surf Pools has partnered with US company Aquatic Development Group, one of the world's biggest operators of surf pool systems, to raise money for the US$10 million ($14 million) pool in Florida.

The technology will also be used in surf pools planned in the United Kingdom and Darwin, Australia.

Technology New Zealand business manager Fraser Smith said the small company had created a substantial commercial opportunity from its world-class scientific expertise.

It has designed an artificial ocean surfing reef in Australia, and is due to build one in Bournemouth in the UK next year, which will be the first in Europe.