Weird Waves Of The World – Munich

Munich, Germany believe it or not has is a booming surf scene, 1000km from the Ocean – Englischer Garten in Munich is home to the fast rapids of the Isar river and the location of one of the top Weird Waves Of The World. Founded in the 1970’s, this epic stand still wave was a man made accident from a combo of the downstream flow and the man build structure of the bridge & canal created a flowing rideable wave, over the years there has been two submerged u-shaped pieces of plywood which have been added to steepen the wave and a series of boulders added to slow the river down. This wave isn’t as simple as throwing your wetty on and grabbing your 5’10 round tail, the local rippers have discovered that boards with less area in the nose, thinner rails and much less fin area work much better as the volume of river water is much different to ocean water and as it is a standing wave it doesn’t arch and break like a normal wave, standard surfboards for this wave can also be quads with two very small back fins, and thrusters with a super small rear fins to perform looser turns and keep up with the flow. The culture and surf scene here in Munich is incredible, there is a community of local surfers that shred this break regularly, just like your local board riders, these keen surfers come together and meet up at their local break (the river) and hang there all day as you would at the beach for your mates. I take my hat off to these keen surfers, they have surfing this man made fun park down to a T! Get out the bucket list the Isar river in Munich is worth a visit and a great addition to our list of Weird Waves Of The World!