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.
-- Giblet, Feb 19 2006

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]

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.

To this day a dolphin coming out of a wave sends me diving to the bottom until my senses overpower my reflexes.
-- normzone, Feb 19 2006


+ Dude.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 19 2006


Make it cylindrical and horizontal, and you can let people shoot the tube from the comfort of a theme park.
-- DrCurry, Feb 20 2006


alternative title: plug-hole surfing. [+]
-- xaviergisz, Feb 20 2006


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?
-- Shz, Feb 20 2006


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.
-- baconbrain, Feb 20 2006


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.

Spacecraft use this technique to gain speed and change direction in space as well.
-- Giblet, Feb 20 2006


You could just do this with rotors, cheaply. I initially read this as "Whirlpool Surfing Addiction" because of the idea after it.

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.
-- bungston, Feb 21 2006


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.
-- bristolz, Feb 21 2006


If the board was wider then drain it could be retrieved between runs with a pole and hook.
-- Giblet, Feb 21 2006


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.

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.

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.
-- baconbrain, Feb 21 2006


"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.
-- DrCurry, Feb 21 2006


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.

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.

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.

I'll change and say "Surfing is done on water going upward."
-- baconbrain, Feb 22 2006



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