Kelly Slater reveals a wave pool that makes REAL WAVES YOU CAN SURF ON

Man-made wave pools have been a thing for a while, and while most surfers seem content to hang around those spots, it seems as though pro surfer Kelly Slater wanted something more. So he and his company spent a considerable amount of time and money trying to make the best wave pool they could.

Here’s what Slater had to say about the project via Instagram:

Now that the world title has been decided and events for the year have finished, I’m excited to show you what I’ve been sitting on for the past couple of weeks. For nearly ten years, my team and I have been working on creating the first truly world-class, high-performance, human-made waves. This is something I dreamt about as a kid. Through rigorous science and technology, we’ve been able to design and build what some said was impossible, and many very understandably never thought would actually happen. I’m proud to say we took our time to get it right, and the first fully-working prototype of the wave now exists (a huge personal thank you to everyone in our lab and on our team for seeing this through!). I’ll be sharing more details in the coming weeks and months but I can’t wait any longer to share a film of my experience surfing the wave for the first time, almost two weeks ago. It was an insane day. I’m still a little in disbelief, and trying to process how much fun this wave is, but it certainly feels like this is going to change a lot of perceptions about human-made waves. There’s a direct link in my bio to kswaveco.com to view the short film. Can’t wait to see other people surf it soon and show what is possible on this thing. #KSWaveCo #FreakOfTechnology #LooksLikeSuperbank but #NotCrowded!

A few days before the reveal, Slater had lost to Mick Fanning in the quarterfinals of the Billabong Pipe Masters. Even though he’s not sitting in the same throne as Masters title winner Adriano de Souza, he’s achieved something special for both sports and science.

Just look at this thing:

Slater posted an update on the wave pool on Wednesday, and yep, it still looks freaking amazing:

(via Surfer Magazine)