STATUS: In operation since 1989
WAVES: Wave heights range from 2-to-4-feet producing soft lefts and rights
LOCATIONS: Orlando, Florida
Barr+Wray worked in conjunction with Whitewater to produce the surf at Typhoon Lagoon (although Murphys Waves also claims credit for the Orlando pool). The system uses water to displace water – incredibly effective but not very precise – in the creation of waves. It’s a setup that works like the world’s first surf park, Big Surf in Arizona. Likened to a giant toilet because the water is dropped from elevated tanks into the pool to produce waves, the basic premise did kick off the wave pool revolution.
It turns out that the transatlantic pairing of Canada’s WhiteWater and Scotland’s Barr + Wray worked in the team’s favor. Barr + Wray being a Europe-based engineering company could not contract in the United States. WhiteWater, founded in 1980 and experienced in delivering large-scale projects, had the resources to do the electrical design and supply as well as the hydraulic systems.
“The water is suspended and hydraulically dumped, which actually replicates the way in which a Tsunami is created with either a displacement from subterranean land movement or displacement with a landslide,” says Derek Barton of Scotland’s Barr+Wray. “Thereby, lifting the water which makes it travel in the same direction as the movement/displacement.”
Of note, Whitewater West is now focused on the Endless Surf wave pool system which uses pneumatic powered caissons to generate surf-able waves.
