Photo: URBNSURF
Whether it’s ambitious grand opening dates that get pushed back or early seasonal closures, schedules and itineraries haven’t been entirely reliable in the surf park industry over the years. Nonetheless, URBNSURF Melbourne developers announced Wednesday that the world’s first Wavegarden Cove facility is expected to open around Easter, 2019, coincidentally when the WSL will be nearby for the 2019 Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach.
That target date would complete a pretty impressive construction time considering ground was just broken on URBNSURF in the fall of 2018.
“We’re stoked with the progress that we’ve made on site over the last few months, with our next-generation wave generator successfully installed and the surf lagoon rapidly taking shape,” said URBNSURF’s Founder and Executive Director, Andrew Ross. “When you walk around the lagoon and witness the scale of the structures, it’s hard to believe this was just a vacant piece of land less than 12 months ago.”
Once the park is open, the pool is said to be able to serve 84 surfers an hour, and according to WavePoolMag, it will be able to pump out up to 1,000 waves per hour. All this with the news that the Wavegarden “Cove” generator is now installed at the facility — now the first full-size Cove in the world. The new 200-meter-long Melbourne facility is also significantly larger than Wavegarden’s Cove test facility, which is 120-meters long.
What most surfers are probably most interested to find out though, is that now that URBNSURF’s set its sights on an Easter opening, they’ve also opened up online applications for “test pilots” ahead of the grand opening.
URBNSURF’s Cove Facility
