Qamea – not going to happen, but

Qamea Island is located in northeastern Fiji, a 1 hour flight from Nadi to Matei airport on Taveuni, followed by a 20 minute boat ride.

The existing surf breaks and surf break potential of Qamea are relatively well known to the project team having surfed the region for the past 10 years.

The Qamea area does not have any true dry season tradewind surfing options, with most of the area’s surf breaks requiring the light variable winds of the wet season.

Read about the logic behind the project:
worldwaveproject.com/project-overview

Read about the opposition to the project:
newsroom.co.nz/fiji-government-addresses-plan-to-rip-up-reef

Make up your own mind..

lushpalm.com/qamea-fiji-islands

Albany West Aus.

There is a proposal for an artificial reef at Albany that could be built any day now.
When it is, it is likely to become another magnet for surf travelers who will inevitably overrun the surrounding waves as well.

https://fb.watch/v/2rxHvaVCo/

Palm Beach – Queensland

DHI Australia has completed an artificial reef for improving coastal protection and the surfing amenity at Palm Beach

Lifted from:
https://www.dhigroup.com/global/news/2019/11/construction_of_dhi_artificial_reef_design

Designing a complex artificial reef 
The reef design itself has evolved from a rectangular submerged breakwater rotated obliquely to the incident wave direction and with mild seaward facing slopes merging into a conical wave focusing toe.
The design used wave refraction to focus and intensify wave energy towards the shallow crest, and as a result of this, further increase wave dissipation. 
The crest level of the reef was set to 1.5 meters below mean sea level to make sure the reef crest remained submerged during low tide, while still being able to induce wave breaking on most swell conditions.
The shape of the reef was carefully designed to make sure that wave breaking on the reef occurred in a continuous and predictable fashion suitable to most surfers.

A rubble mound rock boulder design was chosen as the best option to assure that the design shape could be achieved in construction and that its structural integrity could be assured during large storms. 

Why don’t we..

1. not accept the shape of the bottom of the places we surf
2. get our local governments to crack a few rocks and make these places better
3. place building-waste blocks where they need to be to improve surfing spots OR better still, make places that people can’t surf into places where they can.

I can give examples but what do you think?

In NSW in the 1930s and 1940s there was a massive building, especially around Sydney, of swimming pools on the coast, they were hewn out of rock on the tidal platforms. Why don’t we do something similar to make/improve surf breaks?

Gold Coast QLD Narrowneck

Gold Coast QLD Narrowneck artificial reef

The Gold Coast Council is spending more than $2 million to revamp the offshore artificial reef at Narrowneck using another 70 sandbags the size of a small bus.
It is worth looking at this article just to see the specialised boat doing the job.

heraldsun.com.au/news/..artificial-reef-has-begun-which-will-improve-surf

Tasmanian Pipe Dream

In an article in The (Hobart) Mercury Park Beach surfer Mr Hollmer-Cross has called for more research to be undertaken.
themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/surfing-family-has-a-beef-with-reef

“There has been no hydrological or environmental assessments on why that spot has been selected as the optimum spot in Tasmania,” he said.
“The surf is really functional as it is, it always has been. For recreational and learner surfers it’s actually ideal.”

That is one of the rules of building artificial surf reefs:
Put them somewhere that no one surfs – there are miles of coastline that fulfill that requirement.

Shane Abel has spent the past three years working on a proposal for an artificial reef at Park Beach, south-east of Hobart.
Mr Abel has done extensive research on attempts to create artificial surf reefs around the world.

Read about how he intends to construct the “reef” in this article by ABC:
abc.net.au/news/2017-07-12/artificial-surf-reef-proposed-for-tasmania/8698874

Shane Abel on Facebook:
facebook.com/pg/canopy01

Editied from the Facebook page:
The reef is constructed from HDPE, the same material used in fish farm cages. The reef is supported on timber piles and is above the ocean floor and not interfering with the littoral drift or sealife that live in the sea beds.
The Wavebuster HDPE reef surface can be designed to match any world class reef within 20mm. The reef slope can be set at any angle to incoming swell with 45 degrees being the middle ground with increased angle producing faster waves and decreased angles producing slower waves.
Construction of the reef is simple with the piles driven from a barge and the reef fabricated onshore then floated out and sunk into position.
Unlike rock or sandbags the Wavebuster reef can be removed easily if there any issues.