Artifical Reef...NZ's first, yahooo.....

[Brent]

Just found out today from within the ranks of our City Council.
Our country's first artifical reef has been granted resource consent and is going to be built & funding is finally approved from various sponsors & a big grant, it'll be done with three months.
Here's the good bit.....it's going directly over the road from my house at a break called "Tay Street"...and I live 60 feet from the beach.

But how's this for karma, without going into details I found out last week I no longer have Colon cancer.

The reef must be my reward...Life is truely beautiful isn't it?

[Phil]

congrats brent on beating the cancer

they have been toying with the idea of making reefs at a few breaks here but unless a sponser coughs up most of the money i cant see it happening

[Guest]

It's being funded by Vodaphone here, the logic being target youth market for cellphones, extremely high profile site (along from new zealand's premier beach holiday spot) and naming rights. The economists say the cost benefit ratio is about 1=70. Yep for every dollar spent on it, the attraction will generate 70 bucks in local revenue.

Engineering wise, it's really simple, The cost of the legal issues & consent process is actually higher than the actual construction job.
In essence it's going to be built out of sand filled geotextile bags, (they look like hot-water bottles you'd put in a bed), each is about the size of a small car, they just lay them on the sea floor & pin the base layer down & pump sand into them..and just stack them on top of each other like kids lego bricks. The logic being if ever they need to be removed, just cut the bags to let the sand out & pull them up off the sea floor.

It'll be about the size of a kids soccer pitch and will generate a good-excellent right hand break for an experienced-expert surfer. At it's shallowest will be 40cm below the lowest tide level. It will be able to reasonably carry 40 surfers without problems..Interesting stuff...
It'll be great for most of us because all the grommets & wanna-be's will flock to it...freeing up the nice sandbar breaks nearby for the rest of us...

If you're interested check out mountreef.co.nz. The shape & profile is all there. Interesting reading.
Brent

[VBbeachbum]

I tried the link to the reef website but it is a parked domain name, no info. Can you check the address please.

[Guest]

sorry; try the site www.asrltd.co.nz
There is a full pdf version of the thing.
The keywords if needed are mount maunganui, reef etc

Sorry I'm not to good at creating links etc.
Brent

[Phil]

was an intresting read nice to have it on your door step for those dawn sessions when no ones out and the suns just coming up

[Guest]

Are you kidding?? It's going to be a mosh pit out there.
Can you even imagine how busy it's going to be??
The best anology I can think of for any of you guys old enough it'll be like living next to & trying to skate a brand new skatepark circa 1978. When they were new, exciting & different.

The good thing is it's only be big enough to safely deal with 40 surfers max. After that frustration will be the result and they'll go elseware.
I like it because obviously the dawn raid thing for me...but also it'll divert attention from the otherwise excellent sandbar beachbreaks up & down the 20 kilometer stretch of beach at other more popular times of the day.

I'll take photos as it's being built & post them for you curious types.

Brent

[nz girl]

hey brent
whats been happening? sh*t you kept quiet bout the cancer, glad you're ok. i might have to move to the north island, when's this reef gonna be ready? i've been pretty much surf grounded for the last month after dinging my board pretty bad - it was at quarry for about 3 weeks then i got it back last saturday and of course me and a mate went for a surf straight away despite the beaches being closed due to excess pollution, and of course that turned out to be a bad idea and i've been coughing my lungs out all week and definatly will have to stay out of the water for a bit longer..its killing me i tell you. apparently the surfs been pretty good at aromoana all week too as everyone i meet has been frothing about the quality waves they've been getting..ah probably good i can't go surfing as i have about 3 essays due by the end of this week not to mention the diss. anyway catch you up when you come down south, might be back in the water by then! oh and all the rocks have been cleared off the beach at st clair! bout time too!

[Brent]

Yea, it was a heavy HEAVY thing. Frightening & weirdly exciting too. I never felt more profoundly alive than when I was dealing with it. Silly as that sounds.
The one thing I really have to say on the topic for all you guys (and girls) out there is. Go to your doctor regularly for check-ups. Yep even young fit healthy guys like us who eat well & don't drink too much piss (well I lied to the doctors on that one ok) can get sick. I did & it saved me from a messy, painful, premature end.

NZ Girl, I was lucky, very early stage one & easily sorted.
I did take myself over to Raglan for a few days to reconnect last week after the drama of the last month. Mate if there is one break you surf in your lifetime...Whale Bay is the gig. Took my two fish boards & enjoyed some piscatoral pleasures for afew days. On the day I came home I surfed in the Tasman Sea in the morning & the Pacific Ocean in the late afternoon. Cool thing to say I've done.

The reef'll be done by November. Dredging sand from the inner harbour now to fill the Geotextile bags, 5000 cubic meters needed, it'll be all done by November they reckon.

The Spit firing eh?, that'll be that big-ar_e low off Gisborne firing straight from the NE swell window...I'm wondering what Murderers or Karitane has been like as well....Mind you the same swell is responsible for washing all the crap down the southern end to St Clair ..rather than sending it off out to sea. Hmmm, dodgy thing to do surfing in it..you've swallowed some poozes :->

I read the full concept thing on the Esplanade job last week in a local govt report. Actually it was a good compromise. A tradeoff between access & foreshore protection. I'll look forward to seeing it complete.

You be good now !
B

[nz girl]

hey brent
that is some heavy sh*t. guess that nothing makes you appreciate how great life is than the thought of losing it... nothing quite so life or death happening down my way, just a lung infection, but i'm getting better, i went for a quick surf yesterday with one of my girls who is also just learning to celebrate the arrival of spring, it was a perfect day and i justified it to myself as fresh air and salt water being good for sick people etc etc and besides i had done a whole days worth of studying..we got off to a late start as my mate didn't finish work til about 3 and by the time she'd come round and then we'd gone off to st clairs to grab my board (i keep it at a mates for easy access) and established that st kilda's and clair were both still closed due to pollution (yeah, not surfing during the ban again in a hurry) we had the great idea of checking out aramoana as everyone had been frothing bout the quality waves they'd been getting there all week...of course by the time we actually got to aramoana it was after 5'oclock and the "legendary" waves we had heard about were well and truely gone, it was real messy and not even worth getting wet for, but we decided we'd gone to so much trouble we had to go have a play. neither of us wanted to go out the back tho as we were all alone and the sun was dissapearing quick so we ended up just mucking round catching the soup. good way to waste an hour but not surfing. am now truly gunning for a surf but instead i'm at the library trying to write a summary for a chapter i was supposed to hand in a week ago. anyway back to surfing, you mentioned you ride fishes, how do you find them? i had a go on my mates fish a couple of weeks a go when my board was still at quarry but i couldn't quite work out how far forward i was supposed to be to stand up and kept falling off. it was also rediculously hard to paddle, it made me appreciate how good i have it with my plank of a board! anyway that summary isn't going to write itself, catch ya up brent

[Brent]

Righteo then..you do your summary & don't waste time responding to this...I'll attempt to describe my school of fishes. I have two.

One is a "real" one, a local copy of the general 1970's design (made by Matt Hands here in Mount Maunganui ...check his fish out at www.handssurf.co.nz it is a twin fin and the fins are varnished/polished plywood. It is 21 inches wide and 5'10" long..the bulk of the width is just where your chest is when paddling and in the general nose area...it is a wee pig dog looking thing. My flatmate (female) reckons it's "cute".
It is easy to catch waves on because of where the width is, but it is not a good turning board however for the same reason...I find I dig rails & fall off all the time when attempting to turn hard. It is very fast in a straight line though and just takes off...good for scaring boogie-boards (and myself).

Now, fish number two is my all-round favourite board...it is made here by Andy Jordan in the Mount. It is 6' long and 20 wide with a very flat rocker, it looks like the other fish but is less extreme, it looks like a wide shortboard with a broad nose and a wide swallow tail. It is a thruster, but I ride it with a very small "trailer" fin in the middle fin's position...
It is also what's referred to here as a "step deck", meaning the board has the general rail shape of a shortboard...but the center of the deck where your chest & lower torso lie when paddling is much thicker than the edges...make sense? It's sort of raised by about 1/2 inch. Making it more bouyant and faster to paddle.

With any shortboard you want to lie with the nose barely out of the water, I lie with the nose even with the water's surface and when paddling arch my back up abit just raising the nose a fraction to clear the surface.

Anyway, another novel, waffle waffle waffle (nothing on tv tonight). Take Care...catch ya later..
Brent

[nz girl]

its crazy just how many factors have to be taken into account for a good surfboard. i don't think i'll be getting a board like yours for a while though... went for a surf on sunday at st clair but it was pretty messy. i still got a couple of waves but also slammed pretty good, i managed to split the skin on my arm through 3mm of neoprene, curse the rocks at st clair! we went out again yesterday around 4pm, there were 2 other guys in the water when we paddled out and by the time we got out at 6 it was closer to 50 guys. crazy stuff, i was trying to paddle inbetween a sea of boards. everyone seems to think its summer as its been sunny for two days i assume. the waves got very big and dumpy as the tide came in, in the end i decided to come in before i killed myself. ah well, it was good fun anyway. i'm not sure if my surfing is improving per se, but in the very least i am now adept at both paddling over long periods and of course i'm quite practiced at wiping out. i can't wait for the summer holidays so i can go surfing everyday and get better...the whole dissertation and special topics thing means i have hardly any time for surfing. could be worse of course, i could live an hour or two from the surf. anyway catch ya brent

[Guest]

Classic. You must have slammed pretty hard....where were you riding (floundering:-)...beside the pool or something?
I honestly think people get all worked up & geek-like when it comes to board types & volumes. I always reckon - walk into a reputable shapers shop & tell him the truth. Bare your soul. Tell him how much you weigh, your real skill level, the breaks you'll be surfing & how strong a paddler you are....and leave them to it. They do know what works best.

Over to Raglan again this last weekend. Nice 2-4 foot perfect walls (again), no real sets...just a consistant point cranking perfect waves, about 20-30 out at Manu Bay both days and that's not really a crowd. Everybody got waves & the whole group worked together perfectly....
It's cool to watch & take part in a perfect point break sessions like that, everybody takes their turn with nobody dropping in, you ride your wave for a couple of hundred meters, you paddle back out around the waves in the order you rode in & move to the take-off point again...it's like a great big escalator.

NE coast up here has been flat for weeks, south east facing (Gissy etc) has been good but we're stuffed here with east cape blocking all the pure east swell action. Solid windswell forcast to build from now to weekend. So Mount'll be the biz methinks. For the next week or so.

You'll get there, just have a bit of faith.
Catch Ya...

[nz girl]

yeah pretty close to the pool. shoulda known better of course. my board is usually really good in the mushy slow waves we get at st clair but the last few days its been breaking extra hard and fast so i've been getting slammed heaps more than usual. i don't mind wiping out, i usually don't feel it til after anyway due to the water temperature...my arm looks pretty cool tho! the waves have been really good the last few days but now can't go surfing till i get my 20% essay done, unfortunately its suppossed to be in french so i forsee that slowing me down a lot. its been t-shirt weather down here for a good week now, probably the nicest weather we've ever had down in cold bloody dunnas (in my memory) lots of guys have already abandoned their booties and hoodies (madness!) raglan sounds like a primo break, its a left ay? i'm goofie so it'd be mellow for me! next time i go to the north island i think i'll be dragging my board up with me...anyway catch ya

[nz girl]

hey brent and all
how was your weekend surf(s)? me i surfed smails for the first time, nice big groundswell, pretty steep waves but evenly spaced out so not too bad. there were quite a few guys out so me and my mate decided to go check it out, twas fun, we surfed for a couple of hours and in the end it was just me and my mate left out there, only he was surfing the other end of the break while i was over on the tommohawk side...from there things went downhill as the tide changed and it got windy/choppy etc. i was quite far out the back so i figured i'd just wait for the next set and catch one in as my friend had already gone back to the car, instead i got a couple on the head and ended up near bird island (the rocky islands that seperate smails from tommohawk for non locals) so i started paddling in, using a tractor on the beach on the marker...quickly realised i was going backwards not forwards. i wasn't too worried, i've been in a million (forgive the hyperbole) rips and have always just paddled to the side till i got to the breaking waves. however this is where things got tricky. first of all the wave refraction caused by bird island meant all the waves for about a football field across wern't breaking and were big and choppy (it got to about 6 foot in the end) plus i was tired from paddling heaps over big waves and basically i got fully stuck in this strong rip and there was noone left on the beach. logically i knew my mate would eventually realise and come back, but i was still sh*tting myself as i was way way out the back by this stage and after paddling for a good 20 straight minutes against the rip, i fully didn't have any strength left. so of course my mate saw me and actually paddled out to me and helped me out, kinda humiliating, and yet so very welcome. that was easily the scariest experience i've had surfing. Surfed middles the next day, dumpy and the tide was too high so it was rubbish, but it was a really nice day anyway so good fun to be out gettin wet. anyways, i've got class in 5, catch ya all

[Brent]

Smaills Beach can be pretty dodgy. I've never been near the southern end...
Because you have two slightly different beaches at about a 30 degree angle to each other, the main one and the smaller beach at the southern end facing more south, the cross wash between them can do weird things. Its alright on incoming or high tide...but when the tide changes & goes out weird current things go on between the two.
I have heard of others paddling for the island and getting out & having a rest & waiting for the drama to stop. Then coming in ok.

I've only ever surfed the very northern end on good days (left hand break) with lots of people so can't really comment. But I've heard the stories. Good to see you didn't panic (well, really panic). Humilated perhaps, but unharmed. Humbling?

Middles eh? that can be a heavy hollow georgous beachbreak, you have to be quick on your feet (get up quick) to enjoy that wave.

Saturday I did Raglan in the morning (3 foot & good) then over the other side of the country to Whangamata (lower Coromandle) for a surf in the afternoon. Whangamata was crowded but good, got some excellent waves.
Sunday was good here too- got two surfs in, An eastern swell is arriving as I write, due to go offshore tomorrow so...um, might be (ahem) sick tomorrow.

[surf patrol]

Back on topic, I live 2 mins from an artificial reef at cables in Perth. I have only seen it break really well a couple of times this year (most of the metro swell here is blocked out by Rottnest Island) but when it has broken it can get really nice. In the right areas an artifical reef could be the answer to some of the overcrowding problems that are seen at good spots.

[nz girl]

with the sheer number of different breaks here i doubt we'll be seeing any artificial reefs going up round otago anytime soon. its just a bunch of concrete blocks ay? it was my first time surfing smails and i had no idea that it got like that, although since then a couple of guys have confirmed what you said brent. pretty dodgy. good waves there though, i'll just be more cautious the next time i surf there...

[Brent]

Yes Surf Patrol. Similar situation here.
This is an area with many small-moderate beach breaks, usually 1-3 foot (measured back of wave) and some shifting sandbars...that sort of wave.
This was my whole argument against the project to start with...why not site it in a location where there is consistant bigger swell. Why slap it in an inconsistant swell site.

Kerry Black countered & said, if it's sited 250 meters off shore in about 10-12 meters of water, with a short steep slope facing seaward, the start of the take-off area (which is only 40cm under the water at lowest astronomical tide) with any swell will stand-up & produce a good little wave. Kind of like a mini Cortes-Bank was his comment.
He commented also the profile is designed to have a very narrow ridge-line along the top of the reef, so the wave will break in a very specific profile...with not much else near the surface to use up the swell energy.

His modeling was pretty impressive. He has spend alot of time travelling the world mapping the like of pipeline, backdoor, tahiti & lots of other areas. On a slightly cynical note. The guy is quite calculating and if you look at our example - Tauranga/Mount Maunganui is New Zealands premier summer/beach holiday spot. It has a great deal of surf culture...with little real substance (i.e hot regular swell)....if you're wanting to get your reef-building business off the ground this is the spot to build your showcase for those international clients with the real cash to come & see.......
We did point out to him previous examples have been unsuccessful. One actually sank I believe, too heavy for the soft sea floor and sunk several feet into the soft material!!!! Which is why no concrete..

He is adament it'll work...his whole career & business depends on it.

NZ Girl; its made of big flat sacks (they look like big hot water bottles). They get pinned to the sea floor then sand is pumped in from a dredge above, they get layered upwards in the correct profile, just like a pallet of bricks or something. The idea is it's not an excessively hard surface if you land on it. And if it fails the bags can be cut open by divers, the sand removed & the bags lifted at little cost.

We liked that idea.

I like the idea also it'll attract all the frothing groms to a centeral spot & it'll be a mosh pit of posers....which'll divert attention from the nice waves just down the beach thanks very much:-)
www.asrltd.co.nz is the site if you want to suss out a pdf of the design.

NZ Girl; if you really have to surf Smaills only surf the northern end of the beach. Or better still...go to Blackhead. Works in Identical conditions...