SURFING NEWS - A War of words has erupted between 11-time world champion Kelly Slater and Gold Coast surfing pioneer Peter Drouyn – formerly transgender surfer Westerly Windina – over claims concerning Slater’s wave machine idea.
Slater, a quarter-finalist in the weekend’s Quiksilver Pro world championship season-opener at Snapper Rocks, has staunchly rejected the claims his idea was not original, aired last week in Tracks magazine.
The American surfing superstar and business partner Adam Fincham, an aerospace engineering professor, have built the world’s most perfect artificial wave in inland California, blowing the surfing world’s collective mind when it was unveiled in late 2015.
The World Surf League recently bought a majority stake in the Kelly Slater Wave Pool company, with speculation the park could be used for world championship events.
But Drouyn, a former Australian surfing champion who in the 1970s invented the man-on-man competition format still used in surf contests today, claims the Slater wave pool is similar to the ‘Wave Generator’ he created in 1979.
The trained civil engineer and lawyer admitted his patent had expired but claimed he was told he would be “involved” in the wave pool project if it got off the ground.
Now a Housing Commission battler, Drouyn, 67, says he has never been compensated for his man-on-man revolution.
“So now I suffer once more,” the flamboyant National Institute of Dramatic Art graduate told Tracks.
