American Wave surf machine of the future
Big Wave rider Anthony Walsh gets in some small wave tricks. Body Glove president Robbie Meistrell approached the Redondo City Council three years ago with a proposal to convert the city’s troubled Seaside Lagoon into an aquatics center. The saltwater pool in King Harbor was loosing $200,000 a year and facing mounting fines for pollution. A wave machine was to be the main attraction. With a wave machine, Redondo could host professional and high school surf contests, offer surf lessons and burnish Redondo’s legacy as the city where Hawaiian George Freeth taught Californians to surf in the early 1900s, Meistrell told the city council. Councilmembers loved the idea, but took no action. Meistrell’s dream of a wave machine in Redondo Beach might have ended that night, had a Manhattan Beach resident Nan McFarland not mailed an Easy Reader newspaper with a story about the council meeting to her son in San Diego. The son was Bruce McFarland, founder of American Wave Machines. McFarland grew up surfing in Manhattan Beach, where he attended Mira Costa High School with Robbie Meistrell’s younger brother Billie. Like every South Bay surfer, he knew the story of the Meistrell cousins’…
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