Sent the following email to Chris at the BBC ....
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Chris.
I read your article this morning (
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/8275283.stm) on the safety concerns and then read your posts on the surfing forum (
www.surfing-waves.com) (on which I am one of the moderators).
I do not need to add to the opinions already adequately expressed on forums around the world about whether the reef will work or not. I do not have sufficient experience as a surfer to make such comments.
However, as someone who regularly surfs at Boscombe and Bournemouth and lives just 8 miles away from the reef, may I just add the following.
Quoting from your article this morning "The reef is part of an £11m ongoing regeneration of Boscombe's seafront which the council hopes will boost the economy by £3m a year and attract up to 10,000 surfers."
10,000 surfers!! Assuming that's per annum (as its in the same sentence as the '£3m a year'), that's over 30 a day on average.
Lets challenge those figures shall we? Average of 30 a day would need something like 300 on each day the reef works to balance out the 0 surfers that are there when the sea is flat (as it has been for the last 2 weeks at Boscombe). The pier area is already totally over crowded when only 20-30 surfers turn up! Where exactly are these 10,000 surfers going to be? In the water? On the beach? Doesn't anybody challenge the statements made by these people?
Lets imagine that the reef works and 300 capable surfers turn up to use it (in order to keep to meet the expected 10,000 year). The reef has a most 2 or 3 take off spots. So that's 100 surfers each. If we allow 30 seconds for each surfer to await a decent wave to ride, that will take 50 minutes or nearly an hour. Do they really think a hundred people are going to queue for 1 hour to ride one wave? Then queue for another hour to ride another wave? Its not Alton Towers.
In order for those 100 surfers to queue around the take off spot, many would be constantly battling the currents and wind to stay in position so as not to miss their take off slot. They just aren't gonna do it.
I would guess that (in the councils mind set) a surfer = holiday maker plus body board, in which case the numbers might stack up. But those holiday makers wont be able to use the reef so what a waste of £3m to build it.
Don't get me wrong, if it works then there are going to be a handful of very happy surfers on the 10-12 days a year they use it. But to extrapolate that into massive revenue from 10,000 surfers is pure fantasy.
Hope this helps.