Surf stars in wave feud

Slater rejects Drouyn claims regarding machine project

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 seasonopener 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 manon-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.

“Each time I hear a copycat has taken another piece out of my soul, a piece of my heart, a secure future taken from my son, I am called once more to hang on and take it in the face again.”

Slater hit back in emails to Drouyn last week, dismissing any similarity between their wave pool concepts as “pure coincidence”.

“I can assure you I never saw what you patented or developed in your time working on (artificial) waves,” he wrote.

“I can imagine you may have seen our creation and thought it aligned with your own vision but I believe it to be pure coincidence.” When Drouyn suggested they meet for lunch during the Quiksilver Pro to thrash out their differences, he was shut down by an upset Slater in the wake of the Tracks story.

“I’m kind of reeling from the attacks and insinuations,” Slater wrote.

In a post on the Tracks website at the weekend, a fired-up Drouyn said Slater’s artificial wave was “flawed” and warned of an American “Super Bowl” takeover of surfing.

“I gave all, and surf stars have become millionaires as a result of my blood, sweat and tears,” he wrote.