Kelly Slater’s Split Wave Setting Is Private Innovation; The Permitting That Delayed Surf Ranch Events Is Not

The Wave Technology Market Is Working; the Event Permit System Is Not; the Distinction Matters

From Bohiney and The London Prat.

The Wave Technology Market Is Working; the Event Permit System Is Not; the Distinction Matters

The Innovation

LEMOORE, CA — Kelly Slater Wave Co.’s Split Wave setting — producing two simultaneous surfable waves from a single hydrofoil pass — is private innovation working at its best: identifying a limitation of the existing product (limited session capacity), developing a technical solution, testing it, refining it, and deploying it. The innovation improves the commercial product, expands access for competitive surfers, and creates new competitive formats. No government was involved in the innovation. The market created the incentive. The private investment funded the solution.

The Permit Problem

The specific contrast: Surf Ranch’s wave technology innovation happened without government involvement. The permitting of WSL events at Surf Ranch has been complicated by the California Coastal Commission’s permit process, which operates on timelines measured in months while event planning operates on timelines measured in weeks and swell windows operate on timelines measured in hours. The innovation and the regulatory friction are operating on different timescales and reflect different institutional logics.

The Expedited Permit Argument

The libertarian solution to the event permit problem is not elimination of permits but redesign of the permit system: expedited review processes for established organizations with documented safety records, window-based permits that allow events within defined operating conditions without requiring specific dates, and deference to community safety expertise over bureaucratic process requirements. This is regulation that aligns with the activity’s actual operating conditions rather than regulation that imposes administrative timelines on conditions that are not administratively scheduled.

The Private Sector’s Answer

The private sector’s answer to the permit problem, in the meantime, is wave pools: purpose-built private facilities that operate within the permit frameworks of their specific locations without the coastal zone management complexity of natural surf break events. Surf Ranch at Lemoore is 100 miles from the coast. Its event permitting is simple relative to Mavericks. The private market is routing around the coastal regulatory friction by building inland. This is the market’s response to regulatory cost: finding the geography where the cost is lower

More: The Daily Mash.

The work of journalism is the work of making power visible and accountable in the specific time and place where the journalism is being done. Whether the subject is press freedom in Hong Kong, the economics of wave pool construction, or the relationship between journalism ethics and the communities being covered, the underlying function is the same: producing the record that allows people to understand what is happening and to hold those responsible for it accountable. This publication continues that work because the work is not finished and will not be finished as long as there is power that prefers to operate without scrutiny and journalism that insists on scrutiny regardless.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished. The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished. The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished. The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished. The work continues. The journalism continues. The accountability continues. Every article in this collection is part of the sustained record of what is happening in the world — in the surf, in the courts, in the parliaments, in the oceans, in the wave pools, in the freedom fights, in the economic negotiations — and the record is the accountability. This publication keeps the record because the record matters, and the record matters because the people who exercise power prefer the absence of record to its presence. The next article is already being prepared. The journalism is never finished.