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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hope they can bring the wave back soon, it’s such a special part of Munich’s spirit and surfing history.
Have they tried turning it off and back on again?
For the history nerds. The Eisbach wave was the world's first river wave. And is the fastest still. The second was the one in Montreal, Habitat 67. 1998. Bigger, wider, but a real big river. And also too many people. Third was ours, 1999. Radetzky Graz, Austria. Bigger, higher, but was not running that often. But was officially recognized, and allowed. No police harassment as in Munich. Now destroyed by the local energy company.
We had to repair our wave every few years. Munich does it similarly. Many good waves are now destroyed, because the repair became troublesome. In Munich they already destroyed their 2nd wave, Flosslände, and the third, the best but deadly one directly in the river is forbidden. In Graz we had 5. Montreal also has more. Boisy is good. Swiss and French also have some.