Every Surf Lakes Surf Park

2 installations across 2 countries, none open yet. Counts and prices come straight from our park records, so this list changes as the parks do.

How Surf Lakes compares to every other wave system →What a Surf Lakes build costs →

WAVE HEIGHT

A 2.4m wave face was achieved at the Yeppoon prototype in 2018; later testing found the plunger had not yet reached its full stroke, so full wave height is still to come

WAVES PER HOUR

Not published as a single figure; one plunge produces several waves at once

TYPICAL BUILD COST

No system price has been published. Forbes Australia reported the company had raised and spent nearly A$37 million.

HOW IT WORKS

A central plunger, a 1,400-tonne device lifted by compressed air through a U-tube on a cycle of about six seconds, drops into the middle of a circular lake and sends concentric swells outward in every direction, the way ripples spread from a stone. They break over reefs shaped around the ring, so a single plunge produces waves on several breaks at once, each set up for a different ability level.

BACKGROUND

Surf Lakes was founded by Australian mining engineer Aaron Trevis, who conceived the concentric-wave idea in 2006 while throwing rocks into a lake near Brisbane and began prototyping in his backyard pool in 2012. In 2016 he formed Surf Lakes Holdings with co-founders Dr Chris Hawley and Reuben Buchanan, and a full-scale machine was built at Yeppoon, Queensland in 2018. No Surf Lakes park has yet opened to the public; Peak Surf Park near Tampa and Surf Lakes Capricorn Coast are its most advanced projects.