From: axman
Subject: Surfing in Munich (Re; Stationnary waves)
Reply-To: aksurf.caltech.edu
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 20:29:12 GMT

OK, Somebody had to ask about stationary waves!

The setting: Munich, Germany,  July 1992, The world Economic Summit has just
ended.  This city, one of Europe's busiest international metropolis is bustling
with politicians, news crews, and security. Imagine the tall buildings which
have survived a few wars. An impressive sight, to say the least. In the midst
of these over-civilized surroundings, the last thing one would expect to see
would be a surfer, on a bike, with his wetsuit on and a surfboard under his
arm. Perhaps it was just a vision. Maybe I was out of the water for a bit too
long, and this hallucination was just a withdrawal symptom. 

But there was no time to waste to figure out if this was indeed just a figment
of my imagination.. I gotta follow this guy. The chase lead me into the English
garden, which is renown for voluptuous naked breasts, and old farts running
around with their weenies bouncing around freely. Maybe these "surfers " are
part of a new fashion clicks. After all, with all the weirdoes hanging around
the English garden,  some wanna-be surfer wouldn't be so out of place. 

Finally, the guy jumped off his bike, and disappeared into the bushes.  Behind
the bushes, one could hear the roaring sound of a river, and the moist smell in
the air suggested that somewhere, there was breaking water. As I got closer, 
there it was, a nice 4-5 foot stationary wave in the river. Amazing! I never
thought something like that was possible. And the guy was ripping it apart. At
times, the face would get quite large, and peel over like a real ocean wave. It
looked just like a real wave, except that instead of the wave moving across the
water, the water was moving across the wave. 

Apparently, to break the flow of water, the city installed a series of posts
into the river, forming a small picked fence. It was accidentally engineered so
as to produce a perfect stationary wave. The stationary wave appears to be no
less than a large hydraulic jump, where the water switches from super-critical
to sub-critical flow. The nice feature of this wave is that you can ride it as
long as you want, until you get sore and tired. 

Within an hour, several more surfers and a couple of boogie-boarders showed up,
and they took turns. On top of a near by bridge,  at least a dozen or so
onlookers watched curiously as these guys ripped and shredded this wave apart..


Naturally, a whole sub-culture has evolved around this wave, and curiously
enough, this culture was no different from the beach surf culture. Immediately,
 I was able to relate to these guys. I gave them my surfer magazine. Luckily,
this issue of surfer covered the big California swells of January. These guys
started drooling over these waves.

The moral of the story: don't be surprised if soon, there's gonna be a whole
lot of Krauts in the water. 

It certainly wouldn't take a whole lot of hydraulic engineering to create one
of these stationary waves in the Colorado river. I can also imagine that such a
wave would scale up, i.e. with more water, and a larger fence, such a wave
could easily be overhead. 

Too bad that there is no more take-off drop when riding a stationary wave. And
frankly, dropping in is one of the best parts of surfing. 

Does anyone out there know of such river waves in the US? 

I hope you guys like this article.

Tchao!

                          Axman 
Newsgroups: alt.surfing