3 minutes ago
I surfed this more than a decade ago. Definitely more of a novelty than anything I'd want to do regularly, but it was fun to try even if the water was freezing.
2 minutes ago
Just adding that when I rode it, they had slabs of wood under the bridge to manipulate it. Sounds like they may not do that anymore
2 hours ago
I visited Munich back in 2013 and recorded several surfers on the wave [0]. For reference I was standing on the bridge just above the platform in the article's second photo. It was pretty neat, and I'm sad that it might be lost.
6 hours ago
The linked Stern article[1] has a before picture showing how the wave used to look.
I'm not that good with hydrodynamics, but since they say nothing structural changed during the cleanup, could it be how quickly they brought the flow back up?
[1]: https://www.stern.de/sport/sportwelt/eisbachwelle--so-funkti...
13 minutes ago
According to other sources (German: https://muenchen.t-online.de/region/muenchen/id_100983050/mu...) some experienced surfers also say that the water level has been unusually low since the reopening (1.40 m and has since dropped to 1.21 m instead of the usual 1.50 m), which of course influences the flow. So some issue with the weirs regulating the flow is suspected - if it's "only" this, it might be quick to fix...
14 minutes ago
It could be that, yes.
This is classic turbulent/laminar behaviour, driven by Reynolds number - the volume, the flow rate, the shape of the vessel.
I actually did a hydrodynamics project around this 20 odd years ago as a first year undergrad - one thing I noted was that I had to open valves slowly - any sudden acceleration could dramatically alter the threshold at which one would transition from laminar to turbulent flow, and you could only get back to the laminar regime by entirely stopping the flow, and bringing it back up, slowly.
6 hours ago
Watching surfers in the middle of this park was one of my favorite things to do in Munich. What a bummer. I'd be surprised if they had any luck at all restoring it.
2 hours ago
Why don't you think they'll be able to restore it? Manmade standing waves are common (and the Eisbach was manmade in the first place.)
6 hours ago
The first time I saw them was around Christmastime and I was just stunned by the sight of surfers in the middle of a snow-filled park.
3 hours ago
I guess they could model the river mathematically. I would not be surprised if there are two or more "stable" stream patterns. Perhaps it resets naturally after one year.
an hour ago
Sure they could... the problem is just that apparently no structural changes were made during the cleanup, but the wave was there before they turned the water off and gone after they turned it back on. And they don't have to wait for a year, they can adjust the flow - the wave is situated in a "brook" very near the point where it exits a tunnel through which it flows under much of the city, so it's heavily regulated (see this map for all Munich "brooks" on the West side of the Isar: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_M%... - blue are the current ones, dark blue is in tunnel, the purple ones are historical, the Eisbach is #55 in the top right corner).
an hour ago
It wouldn’t be the first time they built a mathematical and physical model of the Isar River in Munich’s inner city, of which the Eisbach is a part.
https://iprpraha.cz/uploads/assets/dokumenty/sharing_experie...
5 hours ago
I really hope they get manage to recover it. I grew up surfing in Central Florida and even I knew about it and had seen pictures of it. I finally went there a few years ago and it was a blast to see people surfing it.
4 hours ago
Okay, I'll bite. Where do you go surfing in Central Florida?
3 hours ago
I think this was meant in jest, but Florida is not that wide on the peninsula. You can drive from Clearwater to Cocoa Beach (the entire width from west to east) in about 2.5-3 hours. So if you live in the middle like near Orlando or Gainesville, you just...drive an hour to go surfing.
4 hours ago
Not OP, but... Cocoa Beach? Home of Kelly Slater?
5 hours ago
Hope they can bring the wave back soon, it’s such a special part of Munich’s spirit and surfing history.
6 hours ago
Have they tried turning it off and back on again?
6 hours ago
That’s what they did and that broke the wave.
3 hours ago
Sediment perhaps?
4 hours ago
Yes. Techniker ist informiert.
5 hours ago
The forced update bricked the wave :(
2 hours ago
> Have they tried turning it off and back on again?
Yes, but the bloody thing updated itself between reboots. But, don't worry, Microsoft will release a fix in a couple of years.
6 hours ago
As you read in the article, yes, they did, and that's what caused the problem.
5 hours ago
Well maybe they just need to jiggle the handle.
