Surfgarten Stade

Surfgarten is a planned Wavegarden Cove about 40 kilometres west of Hamburg, in Stade in Lower Saxony. The project pairs a 20,000 square metre lagoon with a 60,000 square metre site, and would be the first Cove in Germany. It has spent two years held up in court: Lower Saxony's higher administrative court found formal defects in the development plan, and the written judgment has since confirmed that the project meets the legal requirements on species and climate protection, rejecting the environmental challenge brought against it. Stade can now repair and secure the plan.

A Wavegarden Cove, the same system running at The Wave near Bristol and Alaia Bay in Switzerland. A pier of independently controlled electromechanical modules peels waves down both sides of the lagoon at once, which is what lets a Cove run beginner whitewash and advanced barrels in the same session block. The project states up to 1,000 waves per hour, wave heights from 0.5 metres to about 2 metres, and rides of up to 20 seconds.

Nobody yet, because there is nothing to book. Once open it would be the closest lagoon to Hamburg and the first Cove in the country, in a region whose surfers currently travel to the North Sea, to Sylt, or to o2 SurfTown at the other end of Germany.

No pricing announced. The investment has been reported at about 20 million euros, which the project itself has not confirmed. European Cove sessions currently run roughly 50 to 100 euros.

Nothing to book. The project describes construction as close, and earthworks started once before the court stopped them, so the signal to watch is whether the development plan is formally reinstated and the build restarts.