How Rotterdam built a wave pool for surfing inside a centuries-old canal

Sometime in 2012, Edwin van Viegen was sitting on the edge of a historic canal in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, when a wild thought crossed his mind. What if people could surf here?



As you might have guessed, van Viegen is an avid surfer, and he was tired of riding the whims of the wind in the North Sea, which lies about 18 miles northwest of Rotterdam. He wanted reliable, consistent waves and he wanted them right there in the canal so that everyone could experience the thrill of the sport without having to leave the city.



Twelve years, one pandemic, and almost $11 million later, van Viegen has made his dream come true in the shape of an extraordinary surf pool. Called RIF010 (from the Dutch word for “reef” and the local postal code “010”), the surf pool is located in the very canal where he first thought of the idea. It can produce a wave every seven seconds—no wind necessary.



[Photo: RIF010]



Repurposing old infrastructure



Man-made waves have a long history . One of the earliest wave pools dates back to 1929 in Munich, where people bobbed around in gentle waves generated by a giant paddle pushing water through a grate. In the U.S., the first wave pool, known as Big Surf , opened in 1969 in Tempe, Arizona, complete with an underground system that played the role of a reef by deflecting water into a wave.



Today’s wave pools are significantly more high-tech, like surfing legend Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Central California, which generates waves with a submerged, 100-ton curved blade gliding on tracks. But in a sea of options, RIF101 is the only one that lets you surf inside an actual canal—a waterway that was once used to transport goods to and from the city’s port (which remains the biggest in Europe).



To create the Rotterdam surf pool, the team started by building a concrete basin inside the canal—like two Russian nesting dolls. Van Viegen explains that the basin had to be built underwater because draining the canal (and changing the pressure inside) could have compromised the historic quays.



Once the basin was completed, the team safely drained the water, installed the mechanisms that turn the pool into a surf pool, and refilled the basin with water from the Rotte river. The basin now holds more than a million gallons of water that have been cleaned using a natural water filtration system and sealed off from the rest of the city’s waterways.



[Photo: RIF010]



How to design a wave



The surfing mechanism was developed by a California-based company called Surf Loch , which uses pneumatic technology to mirror the way waves form in the ocean. At RIF010, this technology is powered by eight engines that are powered by wind energy sourced from the North Sea. The engines do what the wind does in real life, namely “push and pull” the water to create a succession of waves known as a swell.



An artificial swell may not be as authentic as one in an open ocean, but it promises to be just as thrilling. Surfers will be able to book one-hour sessions based on their skill level, riding waves as small as a foot and a half to as big as 5 feet (though van Viegen says the technology allows for even bigger waves).



If you’re a beginner (or a child) you can take lessons in “the bay”—or the end of the canal where the white water breaks. One of RIF010’s goals is to introduce local schoolchildren to surfing and other water sports, which makes RIF010 a foundation, helping van Viegen secure a $3 million donation from the city of Rotterdam.



If you’re a pro, you can sign up for a session of 5-foot waves—each of which lasts about 9 seconds, when it’s time to hop off the board, paddle back to the “takeoff zone,” and do it all over again. The pool can accommodate about 20 surfers at a time, plus 18 learners in the bay; one-hour sessions will cost between $38 and $65, depending on the wave height.



To a surfer muggle like me, the entire operation sounds a lot like a boisterous water park chock-full of shrieking kids, situated directly within balconied residential buildings. But van Viegen says that the engines are quiet, and that surfing is a focused sport, so people should be reserved, too. “If you surf, you have a challenge with yourself,” he says.



With no engines whirring and no surfers shouting, the only noise that remains, then, is the gentle lapping of waves—just like on the beach, but in the center of Rotterdam.