Riding the Crest of Imagination to the Perfect Wave : Invention: La Jolla surfer uses his illusion to create the next best thing to being there. Parks around the world scramble to copy it.

Searching for the perfect wave, Tom Lochtefeld found it in his mind.

A surfer since childhood, Lochtefeld grew up in La Jolla hearing stories about where to find the best surf.

Friends raved about the ruler-edge point break at Malibu; the sandbar-groomed cylinders at Kirra Point in Australia and the gaping tunnels that explode precisely over coral reefs in Uluwatu, Indonesia.

Four years ago Lochtefeld turned 35 and decided he had heard enough. He left real estate development for a surf-hunt as wild as anyone could imagine.

He and a tight-knit crew of La Jolla surf enthusiasts--a board shaper, a photographer and a hydraulics engineer--pursued their wave musings. After three years of trials, they hit upon an idea for a perfect man-made wave for surfing.

Lochtefeld and friends designed the Flow Rider, a sculpted wave machine that shapes 100,000 gallons of water a minute into a barreling, six-foot imitation of a wave.

After collaborating with a water park contractor, the first Flow Rider was built at a water theme resort in New Braunfels, Texas.

Since August, 1991, when the Schlitterbahn Family Water Park opened a ride featuring the Flow Rider, the wave machine has become the talk of the amusement park industry.

A successor to the Texas wave was built in central Florida this summer, and construction is under way for a wave almost twice as large in Norway. Park developers in New Jersey and Hokaido, Japan, are negotiating contracts for Lochtefeld’s patented design.

“Everyone is curious,” said Al Turner, executive director of the World Water Park Assn., in Lenexa, Kan. “No one really can tell you exactly what draws people to it. It’s the surfing image, or the adrenaline rush, or the exhibitionism. . . . I’ve been on hundreds of water rides over the years, and I’d say this one is the greatest.”

The wave rides in Texas and Florida use a stadium-like setting complete with bleachers, disc jockey and powerful sound system to encourage wave riders. In Texas, park owners responded to the popularity of the ride by installing a large hot tub next to the Flow Rider attraction, and have continued to run the wave machine in fall and winter months when the rest of the park is closed.

At the annual water park industry convention held in October in Daytona Beach, the Flow Rider was presented with the association’s highest award for innovation.

Wayne Bernoska, aquatic supervisor at Water Mania Water Park in Kissimmee, Florida, calls Lochtefeld’s machine “the marketing hook” that parks are looking for. Introducing the wave ride at Water Mania has boosted attendance and provided an edge over competitor theme parks.

At the Schlitterbahn, attendance rose from about 500,000 before the ride was installed to 624,000 last season, said Jeff Henry, park vice president and a collaborator on the project.

Schlitterbahn expected to recover its $1-million development cost after the first full-season is completed in September, Henry said.

The success is particularly encouraging given the disdain that greeted earlier wave machines.

Since the early 1970s, several parks across the nation have attempted to duplicate the ocean’s wave action by agitating water in huge tanks, said surfboard designer Carl Ekstrom, who works with Lochtefeld developing models of the wave machine. The deep-water wave pools still used at parks in Arizona and Florida don’t measure up to quality surf, Ekstrom said.

Experiences with the surf pools left Lochtefeld and many other surfers skeptical about man-made waves.

Lochtefeld put aside the concept, but he continued to ponder.

While riding his favorite break, Big Rock Reef in La Jolla, he observed the water sucking out over the reef below him. While slotted in a wave, he noted how mere inches of water separated him from the reef. Then came his epiphany.

Lochtefeld began focusing only on the water’s surface, where surfing actually takes place. He imagined a high-speed water stream flowing over a sloped wall. On the layer of water that is created, people would be able to slide up and down the wall as if it were a moving wave.

Lochtefeld quietly sculpted his thoughts in the sand on the beach at Big Rock, polling only close friends about the idea.

“With most surfers, I didn’t say word one,” Lochtefeld said. “I really tried to downplay the idea until we had one built.”

Acceptance is hard to gauge, even as the Flow Rider gains notoriety in magazines and surf videos, said Buz Sipes, 43, a long-time friend of Lochtefeld’s and a professional photographer. Sipes began working on the modeling design team this year.

“My initial reaction to it was very ‘Ho-hum,’ ” Sipes said. “I thought no matter how fun it is, it’s not going to be as good as surfing.

“When we went out and actually rode it, we stayed for hours . . . There were the young kids out there just laughing their heads off until the middle of the night. . . . It took us all back to the feeling when we just started surfing, that this was something new and exciting and it wasn’t like anything else.”

After much reflection, Lochtefeld has come to distinguish between his machine and the real thing.

“I’ve struggled with that,” he said. “We all know the Flow Rider is not a real wave. But the way I’d like to think of it, the wave machine is helping bring the experience to more people, and by doing that maybe we’re helping the uninitiated understand some of the truth about surfing.

“Even though it is just an illusion, it’s a damn good one.”