Translator: Suyeon Ji Reviewer: Cihan Ekmekçi
Thank you.
So, for those of you who don't know,
(Laughter)
I grew up in Iowa.
(Laughter)
There's a lot of farms in Iowa, and I was a landlocked kid,
about as landlocked as you can get in North America or the U.S.
And something was always calling to me,
and I knew that I needed to get from the farms to the water.
I had watched surf videos as a kid
and just knew it was something I always wanted to do.
So eventually, I moved out to the Oregon coast to learn to surf.
Why I chose Oregon is still beyond me
because it's a very intense coastline out there,
and it became my surf coach because I went at this alone.
And the Oregon coast as a coach isn't the most forgiving coach out there.
So, some hard lessons learned, some things like,
here's how you hold your breath under water
for as long as you can against your will
(Laughter)
as well as eventually how to surf.
So sometimes that kind of tough coaching scenario can get you there quicker,
so I had a nice sped-up learning curve from that.
However, once I finally learned to surf,
of course, it became everything I ever wanted to do.
I moved back to Idaho for a little bit to take a job,
improve the financial situation.
In my mind, at the time, it was only temporarily,
just to save up enough to get myself back to somewhere coastal
in order to be able to continue surfing.
But it just didn't take very much time at all for me to start going crazy,
needing to surf sooner and more often than that.
So I started becoming obsessed with this idea,
and I needed to find a way to fill my empty surf hole.
What are my options?
Could you surf on a river?
Well, I've seen kayakers do it before.
What's the difference between a kayak and a surfboard?
Not a whole lot when it comes to the planing.
So I found out this is a thing;
people actually have been doing this for a while.
So I had to ask myself, "What is river surfing?"
River surfing is the act of surfing on a river rapid,
pretty basic and straight forward.
River rapid is also is known as a free surface hydraulic,
and you can do this on an ocean style short board -
so similar that they're transferable.
You can use the same board you would in the ocean on the wave,
which can come in handy,
especially if you're in a state that has oceans and rivers.
So the most important question, though, I needed to ask is why river surfing.
What about river surfing called to me?
What was it that really drove me to pursue something
so weirdly ridiculous and potentially dangerous?
Well, it turns out that river surfing provided me
with a level of bliss that I never knew was even possible.
It spoke to me in a language that I could understand.
It gave me everything I was ever looking for
and filled that void that I was unable to get living in a landlocked state.
So I needed to educate myself a little bit more.
How am I going to find out where these river rapids are
that are good for surfing?
What’s it going to take?
How am I going to get the measurements?
For example, as ocean surfers, we’re able to look up the swell direction,
the height, the wind direction, all these factors to know
whether or not we should even drive to the beach that day.
And furthermore, I needed to learn what types of rapids there are.
So, I found out that we measure rivers in cubic feet per second,
or it could be cubic meters per second, which would give you a lower number.
But nonetheless, that’s how we knew when a river was raging,
and that we should go try to surf it.
And then I found out there’s multiple types of river waves out there.
There are green waves and wave holes.
There’s other types too, but these are the relevant ones,
so I’ll talk about those.
The green wave is what we’re always looking for
because it gives us that ocean feeling of having no disturbance in the water
and feeling our fins cut through as we make our cutbacks.
Wave holes are going to be a little bit more of like a rodeo kind of surfing
and have a little bit more dynamics in the feature,
but we’re always searching for that smooth ride.
So, how did I get started river surfing?
Well, it turns out, I was just riding my bike down the green belt one day,
just over here on 36th Street, and I look over,
and at this point in time, the Boise River was at flood stage, which is 8,000 CFS.
And what I saw looked to me like a perfect green wave.
So without hesitation,
I ran home and got my wet suit and surfboard and jumped in,
not knowing hardly anything about it.
And I tried over and over and over because it was very technical,
a lot more than I would have ever expected.
And as I’m doing this, lucky enough,
a professional surfer who used to live on the north shore of Owahu
comes riding his bike by.
He had just moved to Idaho recently to be with family, and he said,
"I’ve been looking at that same wave, I think you’re onto something here.
This can be done."
So without hesitation,
I handed over the wetsuit and the surfboard,
and he demonstrated a river paddling fluidity
that I didn’t even know was possible.
He also, amazingly, just popped up and started surfing on the wave
that I had tried 100 times before he rolled up.
(Laughter)
But this was awesome, though,
because I knew that we had found something,
and he demonstrated an ocean surfing style that made me think,
"Wow, this isn’t just like stand-up surfable.
We can really carve on these rapids."
So eventually, after watching him enough
and getting the kind of visuals I needed, I got it.
And shortly after,
the flow came down a little bit, we needed to find something else.
So we went up to Barber Park, just seven miles upstream.
We surfed a little wave up there.
It wasn’t as good as this one,
but we realized that we had surfed two waves on the same river
within a seven-mile radius.
We knew we’d found something.
So, that just created the addiction and the thirst.
And we figured out that there was a whitewater park
built in Cascade, Idaho, called Kelly’s Whitewater Park.
This whitewater park is absolutely gorgeous.
When you’re up there,
you get the mountainous isolation, you get the warmer water
because it comes off of the top of the dam
and just scenery that you can never imagine possible.
The combination with the natural elements and the surf that the wave provided
were unbelievable.
I’ll never forget walking up to that top feature and looking down
at what looked like a four-foot, never-ending, right surf ocean wave
and put in every amount of effort I had until we were finally able to get it.
That just increased the obsession.
So we moved on.
Drove up north a little bit further to the Lock Saw River here in Idaho,
and this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
It has crystal clear water, granite boulders,
deer ferns, old-growth trees.
And surfing on this wave gave us a level of serenity
that we hadn’t achieved through any of the other ones before,
because of the natural bond to the elements,
being in what felt like a jungle here in this gem state.
So, the next wave that we went for,
of course we needed more,
we had this amazingly successful two or three waves in a row
amongst a bunch of other fairly unsuccessful ones,
but I’m just going to talk about the cool ones.
(Laughter)
The next wave that we went to was on the Payette River,
and this was at 11,000 CFS.
All 11,000 cubic feet of that water came through one channel.
And that created a foam pile that was taller than me,
created a green wave face that was as tall as I am.
And wrestling through that foam to try to get to the green face
took quite a few attempts,
but once I finally got it and stood up on this wave,
it was the most intense level of surfing I’d ever felt.
This water speed was incredible to the point
where if I made a one-inch turn, I would see spray go up over my head,
even to the point where I could feel and hear
my fins whistling under my surfboard.
And that’s a real thing.
I found that out. I had to look it up.
(Laughter)
So, after all these years of chasing,
all these natural river waves all over Idaho
and having a lot of success in surfing them,
Boise builds a whitewater park.
Now, the Boise Whitewater Park,
the kayak community paved the way for the Boise Whitewater Park
as well as paved the way for a lot of the waves
that we went searching for earlier up on the natural rivers.
This was implemented by Friends of the Whitewater Park,
the city of Boise, and the J.A. and Katherine Albertson Family Foundation.
And we currently have this system now that is unbelievable.
The wave shaping system consists of two major components:
the pneumatics and the hydraulics.
The hydraulics allow us to change the pitch of the wave
by moving up and down.
The pneumatics, you fill them with air,
and they lift up a steel plate called a flash board,
allowing us to constrict the river.
Now, when you constrict the river,
what happens is you build up an upper pool.
So you’re going to have a higher kind of flat area right here,
before your rapids starts that you’re going to surf on.
Thus, speeding up the water, and once it hits the constricted area,
it gets the most speed;
it goes on a drop or otherwise known as a gradient.
And then, when it hits the tail water, it makes what’s called a hydraulic jump,
otherwise known now as surf wave.
So, the free surface hydraulic is our surf wave,
and this was an amazing discovery,
and I spent way too much time here.
(Laughter)
I spent six or seven days a week down at this whitewater park,
harassing the initial engineers and wave technicians saying,
"What’s going on here? Can we get more of a green wave going?
Do we have other options? Can we try this or that?"
They were all really cool about it
and really cool about the up-and-coming sport here in Boise.
So they catered to it, and the waves progressively got better.
And this led to kind of a dream come true.
The city of Boise Parks and Recreation Department
chose me to be the wave technician.
(Applause)
Thank you.
Now that’s a dream come true for a river surfer
whose dream come true was already just to surf on river.
(Laughter)
Now I get to make the wave that I’m going to surf on.
So, obsession became my way of thinking
when it came to shaping waves and all of the above.
It increased my obsession
from what was just a surf section to the dynamic section.
I had to learn the system,
how the pneumatics and the hydraulics worked together
because they work in unison.
And one tenth of one pound of pressure in one of the nine bladders that we have
will change the wave completely from a green wave to a wave hole
or just change the composition period, which gives us a lot of variability,
and it’s fantastic.
So I was obsessed with the flow dynamics,
the hydroplaning aspect of it
to the point where I was building surfboards in my backyard
with different aspect ratios and rocker templates.
What’s going to work best for the river?
So I was building the boards for the wave and then going to surf it.
It all came together full force, and it was an absolute great time.
And what I found out is that adjustability of this Park
is what meets the needs of the broader population.
Not only a broader population because we can change it
from a wave hole to surf wave, catering to surfers,
stand-up paddle boarders, kayakers, boogie boarders,
you name it, it can be used at the park.
It also meets the needs of a broader flow range.
We can make waves anywhere from 300 CFS to 3,500 CFS.
And the biggest benefit of this range
is that we are able to surf multiple different waves every single year.
So we’re not just surfing the same one.
We’ll have different styles and flows that come through.
Right now actually, at the park, and that was a surprise today,
it's our best wave that we’ve ever made; it’s huge.
If you get a chance, go take a look at it.
I was surfing it earlier, like an hour ago.
(Laughter)
This wave system has two functions.
Now, the priority function -
and I can’t emphasize this enough -
is irrigation.
Irrigation becoming a priority was kind of ironic
because I moved away from the farm to get to the water as an Iowan,
and now it’s my job to get the water to the farm.
So, the secondary function of the system is recreation,
surfing, kayaking, whatever it may be, but we’re focusing on surfing for now.
And to have both purposes, I mean it’s just a win-win,
but if you can take a win-win and add another win,
I’m going to show you how to do that,
because what it did is it replaced what’s called a low-head dam.
A low-head dam is what happens when you take an irrigation canal,
you get the right amount of water in it to send it to the farmers who need it,
but then if you get a surplus of water in the initial source or the river,
it’s going to pour over the top of the dam.
When it pours over the top of the dam, it creates a backflow underneath
at the tail water that creates a trap that nobody can get out of.
People die from these every year.
And the amount of people that die from low-head dams is increasing.
So, they don’t have to.
This doesn’t have to be happening, because whitewater parks can solve this.
It’s a contagious idea.
Ben Dorgan was building a whitewater park, and they came out and saw
what we were doing with the Green Wave system.
And they put almost 100% of their priority focus into their green wave,
and they now have an amazingly consistent beautiful glassy green wave.
Charles City, Iowa, builds a whitewater park.
Now this one didn't have adjustability, but I got to go back to Iowa and surf.
Now that’s talking, 360 full circle.
(Laughter)
Didn’t see that one coming.
Cities benefit from this tremendously, and it baffles audiences.
People can’t believe what they’re seeing when they come by.
I have these conversations every day.
It is absolutely a wonderful attraction and a beautiful thing to look at.
And fundamentally, surfing is no longer coastal,
and it can still be natural.
This water is already there.
We’ve already got 3,000 cubic feet of water coming down the river.
The energy is there, all we need to do is shift it.
And then we get to surf.
So that’s win-win as well.
The best part of all of this
is that when you put it all together,
if we can replace low-head dams all across the country,
which they are everywhere, with whitewater parks,
then it’s only going to further support the argument
that river surfing saves lives.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
River surfing didn’t only save my life
and all the other surfers out there’s lives,
but it provided a much safer
and a much more fun way to distribute water.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheers)