Europes first artificial surfing reef begins construction

Much hyped and long awaited the artificial reef at Boscombe, Southern England is now under construction. Lets hope it works as well as anticipated. Heres what Bournemouthsurfreef.co.uk says:

The Bournemouth Surf Reef in Boscombe will be one of four artificial reefs worldwide: Narrowneck, Queensland; Opunaki, New Zealand and Mt.Maunganui, New Zealand.

The reef will be located to the east of Boscombe Pier (about 2.5 kilometres from Bournemouth Pier) and the submerged reef will take up approximately one hectare (the size of a football pitch) which will be 225 metres from the shoreline. The reef mimics the effects of a natural reef and will be built from large geo-textile bags pumped hard with sand. The sandbags weigh up to 2,500 tonnes and biggest are up to 70m long, 2m high and 6m wide, so once they are in place nothing will move them



What conditions will the Surf Reef provide?
The reef acts as a ramp which changes the way the waves break. The reef has been designed to provide mainly a right-hand breaking wave of approximately 75m. The left-hand break of the reef is designed to roll down the reef and 'clean up' the short period chop that the dominant cross-shore wind creates. This will make the wave-face on the right-hander cleaner for surfing.

During clean swell conditions with light winds, the left-hander will also provide a 20m fast ride, which will likely be most favourable to body boarders. This is similar to the Narrowneck Reef on the Gold Coast in Australia, and the Mount Reef in New Zealand. It is expected that inshore of the reef, better surfing conditions will also occur due to the changes in wave-height gradients caused by the presence of the reef offshore, which result in sand banks with peeling and surfable waves. During clean, long period swell, the reef and the inshore banks would all be surfable.

The reef at Boscombe is designed to provide a grade-5 wave on a day with good swell which is in the challenging range (Hawaii Pipeline is a grade-8).

In calm weather, such as July or August, the reef will create a ‘lagoon’ along the shoreline offering safe, flat conditions for families and beach users.