Photo: Jason Broderick/Red Bull Content Pool
It’s thanks to cholera that Rotterdam has its modern canal design. In the mid-19th century, the city dealt with recurring epidemics due to untreated sewage and waste floating around stagnant waterways. Willem Nicolaas Rose, the city’s architect from 1839 to 1855, designed the Rotterdam Water Project, which aimed to build five canals to flush out the petulance with clean water. It took years for the plans to come to fruition, but 182 years later, the Netherlands’ second-largest city boasts truly scenic canals.
One of which now hosts the newest wave pool in Europe, RiF010. Billed as the world’s first urbanized wave pool, it opened smack in the middle of Rotterdam on July 6. The first Rotterdam Surf Open kicked off proceedings, with Italo Ferreira going for a flurry of shut-its and acid drops by running along the side of the canal.
Proponents of this pool see it as a potential boon for the local economy, given that it’s in the middle of Rotterdam. The city government poured €3 million into the project, hoping the tourism dollars bolster local shops and museums.
The pool uses a pneumatic system by Surf Loch, which uses air chambers to pump out 1.5-meter waves (4.9 feet) every seven seconds. Such Loch is the tech behind the Palm Springs Surf Club in Southern California. After years of financing and legal hurdles, developers broke ground in 2022, filling the bottom of the 426-foot-long canal with concrete. A one-hour session will cost between €35 to €60, depending on the wave height. It’ll be open year-round, even in the winter.
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