There is potential to reduce the cost of wave energy through use of deformable fabric/elastomeric structures for wave energy conversion. Deformable bodies can have several advantages over their conventional rigid counterparts. In particular, a heaving deformable body can have a longer resonance period than that of a heaving rigid body of the same size, because of the lower hydrostatic stiffness. This means that the device can be smaller and hence cheaper if a deformable body is used.