Trident solves South Africa’s unemployment crisis. Magnificent work! Well not yet at least. We have a long way to go yet. How on earth does Trident intend to mitigate this terrible scourge on society? With two words – Wave Pools. Trident prefers to spell wavepools with one word though, but whatever. Writer’s license and living in a free society and all. Wave pools, wavepools, we’ll spell as we wish, fascist.
Anyway. Trident is not suggesting we could solve the entire unemployment issue overnight. Nor are we realistically able to affect unemployment global scale. But local unemployment? You betcha we have some sort of plan! And it involved time travel. Until we realised that wouldn’t work. So we came up with another plan.
Trident is nothing if not humanitarian.
And that’s exactly what the unemployment figures are in South Africa: a humanitarian crisis.
So we need innovation. Look at surf tourism globally: a significant income creator in many coastal countries. Indeed, for decades in our own backyard we have had thousands of foreign, as well as domestic visitors, to the likes of J Bay, St Francis and the plethora of top waves we have on offer. Therefore the (misplaced?) outcry of J Bay not hosting a CT event this year could be a yardstick of what we potentially missed in terms of surf tourism income.
The trouble with natural surf spots though, is the simple fact they’re natural. Yes. Natural. In other words, not perfect year round. Just ask everyone who has lived though this past season in J Bay. Pretty sure they’d have taken up competitive long distance spitting just to get through this winter’s dearth of onshore winds and supremely kak swells. Yes, SA has superb waves, but we also have flat and/or bad surf spells. Like this past winter. You can see the phenomenon of bad waves on surf Whatsapp groups; the meme’s get less clean as the surf gets less clean.
So although we already have a reputation as a solid surf tourism destination based on our relatively consistent waves. However, how do we ramp that up? Well, what Trident is alluding to is this: killing two birds with one stone. Surf tourism equals employment. We shall solve South Africa’ unemployment crisis with two words – wave pools. Or one word – wavepools if you prefer.
Okay, you get it now. We create wavepools and the visitors will come. But, how?
Of course we live in a water scarce country. So let’s not seriously consider building artificial expanses of water from scratch. That is simply defeating the purpose. So right at the start, only existing bodies of water suitable for purpose will be considered. But Trident, you may ask, what then about our relatively unreliable energy supply?
Aha! We use the power of the people – and create employment! For years now, government, civil society and ordinary folks have banged on about the “Power of the People”, “People Power”, “Power to the People” and variants of the same tired old cliché. But Trident says let’s actually employ people to create power, in order to power wavepools. Two birds: people and employment. One stone – wavepools.
And that’s our Eureka moment.
A new wave pool technology that is driven by people power and not reliant on energy infrastructure. And that, ladies gentlemen and SUPers, is how you make strides reducing unemployment. People are paid to work in the sun producing waves for surfers of all stripes to enjoy. We will even trademark it. Sunemployment.
For example, where Trident is based, we have the North End lake. It lies next to a state of the art stadium scratch built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We’re not entirely sure what flora and fauna exists in this lake. Nor do we know what was introduced nor what is indigenous. Nonetheless, apart from waterskiing, poachers boozing it up along its shores and the occasional handy place to dump a body, we’re not sure what actual purpose this lake serves. So the North End lake will be our model example, our proof of concept. It’s an existing body of water, so no prohibitive initial costs nor will we be using up precious water.
Now, we’re not scientists not engineers, but we propose a giant hamster wheel kind of setup. Or perhaps something like the old Viking longships. Maybe huge treadmills. Whatever tech it is, we can employ dozens – if not hundreds of teams of people to use their own strength to generate waves. No energy, just people power. Power to the people! The people shall have power! And outdoor exercise! And jobs. Creating waves. All while being in the fresh air. We could even reconfigure Nelson Mandela Stadium into an amphitheatre kinda thing, with its tens of thousands of seating for frothing spectators. Drinks and chow served. Even more jobs are created! Possibilities are limitless!.
Simple – the more wavepools, the more employment created, the more surf tourism. It’s exponential. The more people-powered wavepools built, the more surfers, the more employees required.
Trident solves our unemployment crisis. With two words – Wave Pools.
You’re welcome, South Africa. Vote Trident.
