Category Archives: artificial surf

All the fake ways of making a breaking wave. The wave has to be able to be ridden.

Qamea – not going to happen, but

Posted on by bruceawhite

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

Palm Beach – Queensland

Posted on by bruceawhite

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..

Posted on by bruceawhite
  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

Posted on by bruceawhite

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

Pushing the sand around to save Palm Beach

Posted on by bruceawhite

Gold Coast City Council (in Queensland, Australia) have a Surf Management Plan that includes:

  • strategies to maximise enjoyment and minimise conflict between beach user groups (e.g. seasonal adjustments to flagged swimming and board riders zones)
  • new coastal capital works projects will give consideration to both coastal protection and where possible, enhancement of surf amenity.

 

Details
goldcoast.qld.gov.au/thegoldcoast/surf-management-plan-23579.html

They announced in June 2016 that $4.5 million has been set aside to start the Palm Beach Shoreline Project and build an artificial reef about 400 metres off Palm Beach. It is expected to take four years.

brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/palm-beach-gets-artificial-reef

gcoast

See also the previous story (July 2015):
brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/gold-coast-beach-erosion-plan

Note that Australian Coastal Walls are selling the ACW Geo-Block beach protection system. More about that on their web page.
australiancoastalwalls.com.au

For a longer term view of Gold Coast coastal management:
goldcoast.qld.gov.au/thegoldcoast/coastal-management-3246.html