Joel Parkinson, Stephanie Gilmore back surf park venture to deliver Olympic gold

Beer and surfing have united as part of a new business frontier, which is set to “absolutely” help Australia win an Olympic gold medal. Here’s how.

Stephen Drill

@steveheraldsun

4 min read

December 24, 2021 - 7:56AM

News Corp Australia Network

National

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Beer will be the secret ingredient in Australia’s first Olympic surfing gold medal.

Former surfing World Champion Joel Parkinson and former Olympic coach Bede Durbidge, poured their profits from the sale of their investment in Balter Brewery into a new surf park.

The state of the art wave being built on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney, will deliver Snapper Rocks’ quality conditions to New South Wales.

Seven-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore is also an investor and has been helping shape the design to provide a platform for high-performance surfing.

The consistent, high-quality waves will deliver unparalleled training opportunities for the next generation of surfers.

Stephanie Gilmore in action. Picture: Matt Dunbar/World Surf League via Getty Images

Parkinson, who grew up surfing the long walls of Snapper Rocks on the Gold Coast, said the new park would “absolutely” help Australia win a gold medal.

“It’s the access to quality waves over and over (which) again gives a surfer the repetition you simply can’t find in the ocean to improve and practice new manoeuvres,” he said.

“Every nation’s surf team now is using surf park infrastructure for their development – they’re here to stay and are a great extension to surfing.”

The wave park will be exclusive for members who invest $30,000 and earn a rental income, raising questions about whether the best young surfers will be able to access the park.

However, Wisemans spokesman Lucas Townsend said there were plans for a scholarship program for upcoming professional surfers once the lodge opens.

Joel Parkinson has poured some of the profits from the sale of Balter brewery into Wisemans Surf Lodge. Picture: Adam Head

Parkinson said the surf park would become a travel destination, potentially replacing boat trips overseas.

He said that the wave would be a different offering for Sydney surfers.

“Growing up on the Gold Coast, we’ve benefited from the long point breaks where we can get several turns or barrels into the one ride,” he said.

“When you compare that to the shorter, puncher waves of Sydney there’s a big difference in the amount of times a surfer can practise a manoeuvre to improve – surf parks will completely change this for Sydney.”

The Wisemans development comes as part of a new frontier for surfing in Australia, with Urbnsurf’s wave park already open at Tullamarine in Melbourne.

A second Urbnsurf is under construction at Sydney’s Olympic Park, while there are plans for similar developments in Perth, Western Australia and Yeppoon in central Queensland.

There are more than two million recreational surfers in Australia, with beaches increasingly crowded in Sydney, the Gold Coast and Victoria’s surf coast.

There has been a boom in female participation in recent years. Gilmore has raised the profile and surf retailers are targeting more products at women.

The sport also introduced pay parity for men’s and women’s surfers in 2018.

Wisemans Surf Lodge will have a rectangular shaped wave pool.

Owen Wright won Australia’s first surfing bronze medal in Tokyo, the first time that the event was held at the Olympics.

Australia has two women in the top five of World Surf League rankings — Gilmore and Sally Fitzgibbons — while Morgan Cibilic is the only Australian male in the top five in a sport that the country traditionally dominated before the rise of Brazilian surfers.

Recreational surfers at Urbnsurf, which opens to midnight on weekends for surfing under lights, were already improving because of the consistent access to waves.

The Wisemans development will offer 2.5m waves, up from Urbnsurf’s 2m limit.

An artists impression of Wisemans Surf Lodge.

And the waves will be generated in a rectangular pool, compared with a diamond shape at Urbnsurf, making it more like the ocean.

“We can make a wave that can break left and right from the take-off, no concrete walls, no shallow depths – it’s the closest you can get to real life,” Wisemans’ Ben McCarthy said.

“The pool is 1.8m at its shallowest point and you can see the wave coming from 30m away.”

Mr McCarthy, who was Urbnsurf development director before moving on to Wisemans, added the Hawkesbury venue was “a genuine 2.5m wave at the take-off – the biggest available in the world.”

Wisemans has a $120 million budget – three times the original estimate for the Tullamarine Urbnsurf.

More than $60 million has been raised so far, with final investments to be closed on February 28, 2022.

The exclusive model, with only 1800 members allowed access to the park, shifts surfing away from the democratic nature of just getting in the water at the local beach.

But there have been previous examples of private waves, including Cloudbreak in Fiji, where only guests at a resort could surf.

Wisemans was being built on an existing resort, which will be renovated, along with a nine-hole golf course and a restaurant backed by Byron Bay’s Harvest.

stephen.drill@news.com.au