Wave Loch Inc. is a surf ride manufacturing company responsible for such water rides as the FlowBarrel, Flying Reef, SurfPool, Wave House franchises, and, formerly, FlowRider. These water attractions grew to mainstream popularity thanks to their use in many popular water parks and cruise ships. Slater swatch carve

History

During the 1980s, Tom Lochtefeld was a partner in the development of

Raging Waters Raging Waters Los Angeles is a water theme park in San Dimas, California. The park is owned and operated by Herschend Family Entertainment. The park is generally closed during the winter season. Raging Waters Los Angeles Raging Waters Los An ...

water parks in the United States. He created a water park attraction to simulate the riding of waves in the ocean. In 1988, a patent was taken out for "a wave-forming generator for generating inclined surfaces on a contained body of water". This was the concept of a sheet wave, the basis of most of Wave Loch's rides. Lochtefeld worked with Charles Sauerbier, Carl Ekstrom and others to model the wave using wave tanks at the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) is the center for oceanography and Earth science at the University of California, San Diego. Its main campus is located in La Jolla, with additional facilities in Point Loma. Founded in 1903 and incorpo ...

in La Jolla. Lochtefeld flowbarrel norway

The first WaveLoch FlowRider opened at the

Schlitterbahn Schlitterbahn is an American brand of water parks and resorts owned by Six Flags, Six Flags Entertainment Corporation. It was previously a company family owned and operated by the Henry family that was based in New Braunfels, Texas. Schlitterbah ...

in Texas in 1991. This was followed by the first FlowBarrel at the Summerland Resort in Norway two years later. In 1999, Wave Loch built a portable FlowBarrel, which was shipped around the world to support the SWATCH and Siemens Wave Tours. This portable FlowBarrel visited Florence, Munich, Australia and other places. Wave House South Africa opened in 2001 with a double FlowBarrel called the D Rex, and two FlowRider Singles at the center of an entertainment, retail and food and beverage complex. In 2005, Wave House San Diego opened at the northwest corner of the Belmont Park amusement area in San Diego, where the company headquarters was located for ten years. By 2009, Wave Loch had sold more than 175 FlowRider sheet waves to locations around the world. In 2014, there were Wave Houses located in Durban, San Diego, Santiago,

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

Sentosa Sentosa Island ( ), known mononymously as Sentosa, is an island located off the southern coast of Singapore's main island. The island is separated from the main island of Singapore by a channel of water, the Keppel Harbour, and is adjacent to ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

, and Mallorca. Additional locations are planned for Miami, Orange County, and three in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. In 2014, Wave Loch sold the FlowRider IP and technology to

WhiteWater West WhiteWater is a manufacturing company based in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. It was established in 1980 and manufactures a variety of products for water parks including water slides and water play areas. The company also owns FlowRider, wh ...

, although it retained the Flow Barrel and Wave House brands. As of 2018, there are over 230 FlowRiders installed around the world. That same year, after ten years of R&D, Wave Loch introduced its Surf Pool line of compressed-air-powered

wave pool A wave pool is a swimming pool in which there are artificially generated, large waves, similar to those of the ocean. Wave pools are often a major feature of water parks, both indoors and outdoors, as well as some leisure centres. History Th ...

s. With its goal of making surfing an Olympic sport, Wave Loch’s Surf Pool generates waves every ten seconds in a footprint.

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History

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