It all started in Biarritz in July 2013, when the Atlantic Ocean went on strike. No waves, a flat sea: the organizers of the Roxy Pro have been forced to cancel the edition of this women’s surfing competition. However, the season was not lost for everyone: Wavegarden, a company that owns artificial wave technology, took the opportunity to invite the idle champion sliders to come and test its pilot site in San Sebastian.
The initiative traveled around the Basque Country, until it reached the ears of Christophe Chaumet, a local child, passionate about sport and techniques. Why bother to go surfing on the ocean beaches, which are overcrowded during the high season, when, with the click of a tablet, it is now possible to trigger 900 waves per hour in a pool? This is how Wavelandes was born in 2018, a private water park project the size of two football fields intended for surfing, but also for around twenty other sports. Interested, the small town of Castets, near Dax, quickly applied.
“Industrial Surfing Disneyland”
“Why, when rugby has Marcoussis and football has Clairefontaine, surfing would not have its own training center? It would be a great tool for our territory to attract people!” Dreams the mayor Philippe Mouhel . The chosen one has already found the land: a wooded area of more than twenty hectares, at the entrance to Castets, located in an industrial area next to a motorway interchange.
The partners of Wavelandes are looking for money: 75 million euros for the surf pool and the planned accommodation park. Recovery of rainwater, reforestation of the forest, zero carbon management: the Landes project may well marry green and blue, but environmental associations denounce the future “Disneyland of industrial surfing”. Unfair attacks, retorts Christophe Chaumet, who estimates that the flow of visitors (200,000 per year) and job creation (300) will irrigate the local economy.
Now time is running out. If Wavelandes does not want to miss the 2024 Olympic Games – surfing became an official discipline in 2020 – work must start quickly. In the meantime, the French surfing champions have found the trick: they are going to train in Sion, Switzerland, where the first artificial wave park in continental Europe was opened last year.