Kelly's Wave

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Long Run
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Kelly's Wave

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A surfer and a scientist teamed up to create the perfect wave

By Jon CohenNov. 8, 2017 , 4:00 PM

LEMOORE, CALIFORNIA—“You should’ve been here yesterday.”

That’s a repeated gag line in The Endless Summer, the classic 1966 documentary that follows two globetrotting surfers on a quest to find the perfect wave. Good surfing waves are a rarity, and even when all the forces come together, the magic is fleeting. Few beaches have a bottom contour that can transform a swell into waves that surfers want to ride, and even then, the vagaries of the swell—its size, angle, periodicity—mixed with ever-changing winds and tides mean great surf sessions are few and far between.

In central California farm country, 175 kilometers from the nearest beach, a champion surfer and a fluid mechanics specialist have teamed up to change that. In a 700-meter-long artificial lake, they’ve devised a system that drags a carefully shaped metal blade called a hydrofoil through the water. As the resulting swell sweeps over the lakebed, which scientists precisely contoured with the help of supercomputers, it is transformed into a surfing wave of unearthly perfection—again and again and again.

Professional surfers, used to the fickle ocean, are astonished by the waves conjured up by Adam Fincham, a researcher at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, and Kelly Slater, who has won the world title in surfing an unprecedented 11 times.
more at http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/ ... rfect-wave

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