In a potential game-changer for surfing, professional surfer Kelly Slater has unveiled — at least partially — what he calls the world’s greatest man-made wave.
He calls it a “freak of technology.”
On Friday, he published video of himself surfing a working prototype of the “first truly world-class, high-performance, human-made waves.” The video has garnered more than 4 million views on Facebook within three days.
The Dec. 5 session marked Slater’s first time surfing the wave, he said.
“It was an insane day,” Slater said in a Facebook post. “I’m still a little in disbelief, and trying to process how much fun this wave is, but it certainly feels like this is going to change a lot of perceptions about human-made waves.”
The project is in an undisclosed location 110 miles from the coast.
In a frenzy after the video was released, surfing writers tried to figure out where Slater’s secret project was developed and realized, pinning it down to a rural former water-ski lake near Lemoore, about 30 miles south of Fresno.
Slater said his crew could have put out a lesser wave years ago, but they waited till they had it just right.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment since 2005,” Slater said in the video. “Glad we waited all that time to do the right thing because this is the best man-made wave ever made, for sure. No doubt about it.”
Kelly Slater Wave Co. and the 43-year-old pro plan to share more details about the project in coming weeks and months.