In this monthly Surf Planner installment, we cover Sevran (Paris), Cairns (Australia), The Arizona Desert and we learn more about Surf Lakes’Gold Coast location. To top it off we’ll explore how landlocked stoke-dens Regensdorf and Mongolia plan to get wet.

The WavePoolMag Surf Planner is currently up-to-date with nearly 50 projects worldwide.

How do we do it? How do we track down developing projects? In all honesty, it’s a mixed bag. Several developers reach out to us, but just as many keep quiet.

It’s a strange dance we do. And it depends on which side of the publicity wall a wave pool wants to be on. One day we can receive several urgent emails asking for a company profile (always good for investor relations) and the next day our inbox can just as likely have a terse “sensitive investor issues… can’t do it. Hope you understand.”

One of our favourites rejections came this week (after several back-and-forth volleys of info) and simply read, “I had a talk with Kelly Slater last night and I’m not in a position to release any information at this time.”

With such an uneven flow of information from sources, well, we still try our best. When a project is pure speculation, it will be noted in this column. As there are

We’ve already mentioned a few of the players on this list, but we are featuring them again as new info has come into light. The news is fresh as we have new deets on Sevran, Regensdorf and Surf Lakes.

Sevran, Paris

In the Sevran banlieue of Paris the Terre d’eaux project is building a Wavegarden Cove at full scale and will include cable park, skate facilities and other sport. Their main goal is to become a destination for both internationals and French countrymen.

Recently they released final artists’ plans detailing how the new space will provide jobs, public open space and a place for neighbourhood kids to engage in sport. Many people interviewed said the area needs more than “just another football field.”

The same setting that gave us parkour will now have waves. And the developers hope that with a 2023 opening, the facility could even host Olympic Surfing.

Cairns

An Australian architecture firm just released designs for a wave pool in Cairns, that tropical surf-less stretch of Oz on the Coral Sea. CA Architects says their design will appeal to the large number of tourists who choose Cairns as a resort destination.

The artist renderings look like a cross between Kelly’s Wave and the original Wavegarden Lagoon tech, like the kind used at NLand and Snowdonia. Wavegarden is in full push for their Cove tech currently and the Lagoon model is on the back burner. Kelly’s tech is exclusive to the KSWC and WSL developments.

So the big question is which tech will they use? American Wave Machines, Webber Wave Pools, Swell MFG or something yet-to-be-built?

As this project gets traction it will be good to see where it goes. The setting is amazing. We’d love to session under some tropical foliage while watching the odd fruit bag tear into a mango.

Swell MFG

Although not a specific wave pool surf destination, one company, lit up Instagram last month with images of a tiny, perfect peak. Phoenix-based Swell MFG says that their technology offers a wider variety of wave options within the same session than current designs on the market.

“Swell MFG’s modular wave system, coupled with its operational software, provides an endless combination of wave variations,” added Swell MFG. “Offering up shorter waves with larger punchy barrels and long, drawn-out peeling lefts and rights.”

Swell MFG started out using wave tanks to study coastal erosion problems while working in conjunction with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the United States Military.

The company says their tech is able to work with nearly any size facility, even small ones. Expansion to a larger sized facility is made possible with the addition of modules.

Surf Lakes

Surf Lakes Holdings Ltd, announced that their first commercial Surf Lakes 5Waves facility will be on the Gold Coast. Where? They won’t say exactly, just that it would be “centrally located.”

In a statement, Surf Lakes confirmed they are committed to providing a facility within the Gold Coast region and that they have been in constant dialogue with local and state government officials with very positive outcomes.

Surf Lakes is headquartered in Robina, a master-planned development dotted with golf courses, waterways and lakes. The town of 24,000 is just inland from Mermaid Beach and Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast.

Regensdorf, Switzerland

Newsworthy for this edition of the Surf Planner Update is that the Waveup project just got the green light to develop. The company has sights on local land near Zurich and hopes to begin construction of their wave pool immediately.

The crew haven’t announced which technology they will implement in their uniquely eco-design, just that the tech needs to tick all the boxes for waves-per-hour, energy consumption and wave variety. But they do hope to be pumping out waves in a truly Swiss environment by 2020.

“The park and surf lagoon are embedded in Swiss nature without invasive species,” co-founder Sebastian Bosson told us in an interview. “So no palm trees or other exotic plants – only pure Swiss and regional plants and trees.”

Mongolia

This one is shrouded in mystery. The International Surfing Association recently confirmed Mongolia as one of its member nations. The ISA is pinning hopes on artificial wave technology to opening up surfing to land-locked countries like Mongolia.

“The growth of surfing in non-traditional surfing nations is testimony to how surfing’s Olympic inclusion has expanded the sport to new corners of the globe,” said ISA President Fernando Aguerre. “Surfers that thought the Games were far out of reach, now have a tangible dream that they can pursue.”

A Chinese wave pool maker, Haozhiquan has plans to develop a pool in Mongolia. However, it’s not confirmed if this will be the preferred tech of the Mongolian Surf Team.

Haozhiquan says their wave pool works through air blowers that pump pressure into closed chambers. The closed chambers release the pressure in sequence to form 10 different types of waves.

“The wave pool is the soul in a water park,” the company says online. “The shape of the waves will be 10 different types, which then break on a realistic-looking man-made beach. People will get an exciting and unique experience of beach life.”