Speaking as someone who is crap at surfing – I am desperate to go for a lesson or two there! I kinda think it will be a bit of a fast track to mediocrity 😉

But hey, mediocrity would be a massive step up from where I currently am, so I can live with that! At least when we got to the proper surf we could make the most of it!

It is now very broken and shut down till next spring. Most of the staff have been laid off.
Some kind of major failure with the motor.
I also hear that they cant produce enough waves as it takes longer than anticipated for the pool to settle between waves. Annoyingly my boss bought me tickets a few weeks ago but ive now kindly asked for a trade in for BPW vouchers

I went there to watch the redbull comp a few weeks ago and it was very impressive. There seemed to be a few mins wait between the waves to allow the pool to settle, but I assumed this was standard? Who knows.

Shame about the lay offs. However if closing it now and getting all the problems sorted means it will be back bigger and better then there will be more work come the spring. I think with it being the first of its kind there was always going to be teething problems. The wave it generates looks very nice, plus the facilities on site were great too. Definitely going to go surf there in the spring.

Bummer.
That’s not going to help their PR much.
Shame about the locals jobs too.

The problem is they rushed to open, the site looked and felt half finished come opening week. Waves were a bit more mushy than I was expecting, not really the glassy barrels promised and lots of surge and backwash after each wave passed – still fun though. Expensive wooden cabins looked plonked in rows onto a gravel car park, no landscaping, not attractive or welcoming. Cafe and restaurant were piss poor to be honest, food looked like a school canteen, even the coffee we had was weak and watery.

However, I think this place has so much potential, shutting isn’t good, but if it gives them the time they need to get things right (and if they have the foresight to take peoples feedback on board) then they should be on to a winner. To make money though then it’s not just about the surfing – I suspect they will need to attract a lot of non-surfers to use the cafe, play area, splash n slide etc. To do this they also need to get these things running properly too, plus create more of a vibe about the place, BBQ, outdoor bar and live band in the summer might help?

Here’s a really good and realistic review from a lad I’ve surfed with a bit.

http://community.magicseaweed.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=43859

I know others who’ve been and I’d give it a go when it reopens.

According to the news it doesn’t appear to be terminal. I presume the staff were on contracts which were due to end when their season finished anyway, so it’s pretty bad news for them, but presumably no reason why they won’t be re-employing the same number when they reopen.

Does have a feeling about it as the Bournmouth wave pit did a few years ago..
That ended in failure and at huge taxpayers cost.
Hope it doesn’t turn out that way, I think it has great potential too.

You would have thought they would add salt to the water as it wont evaporate so should be a one time deal and surely most of the lack of float problems are down to the fresh water. I guess maybe some of the equipment has been specified for fresh water only.

You would have thought they would add salt to the water as it wont evaporate so should be a one time deal and surely most of the lack of float problems are down to the fresh water. I guess maybe some of the equipment has been specified for fresh water only.

I would have thought that the salt would corrode through the sledge pulleys and cable mechanism in no time. Pretty pleasant to wipe out and not end up with a mouthful of salt water (for a change) too.

I can see why you would not put salt in the water because of corrosion etc. but if it means that you can’t ride your normal board in a normal way its a bit of an home goal.

Or just ride a more appropriate board with a bit more volume?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is an incredible achievement so far, I think they had always planned to close over winter, they just had to bring the closure forward, which is a shame for those booked in but for the project to be great they need to have time to perfect the technology. I am happy to ride a more buoyant board as long as they are available to use. I hope they come back in the spring with lots of the little problems ironed out and can offer the kind of service that will make it great value and brilliant place to visit.

Do people know if they plan to close every winter, just out of interest. I guess the water in a relatively small pond will cool down much more than the sea and probably in that location freeze relatively frequently.

I can see why you would not put salt in the water because of corrosion etc. but if it means that you can’t ride your normal board in a normal way its a bit of an home goal.

But it’s a different experience from sea surfing anyway?

Not a scientific calculation but they say the lagoon holds 33,000 m3 of water. Sea water contains 25kg of salt per m3, so they’d need 825 tonnes of the stuff to make the water like the sea. Say sea salt costs £60 per tonne (Google figure) that’s a whopping £50,000 each time the pool was salted, plus the transport to get it there, so add on another £20,000 for haulage.

How many times has the pool there be drained and refilled already? Roughly three by my count, so if they’d have used salt then that would have been £210,000 down the drain (or down the River Conwy to be more precise) already.

I don’t know if they intend to close every winter. From what I understand from talking to one of the guys there was that they were always going to close this winter to finish off the place (as mentioned it looks a bit unfinished in places). I was asking him when high and low seasons are so I would assume that they intend to stay open further into winter in the future as that would be a low season. It would make sense to keep it open all year round. It would have to be very very cold for everything to freeze up and I think the water circulates in the pool anyway. Its a pretty big pool.