Cocoa Beach, Florida – ASR have been selected as part of the team to design and construct a multi-purpose reef at Cocoa Beach in Florida, which many will recognize as the hometown of 8x surfing world champion, Kelly Slater. Like many areas of east coast US, chronic erosion is a problem in this area. The primary aim of the project is coastal protection, and with the strong alongshore currents and often small wave climate, wave rotation will be an important aspect of the design. Also high on the list of objectives is the incorporation of surfing amenity into the structure.

This is a very exciting project to be involved with, especially in this part of the world, where massive renourishment schemes are norm, but issues such as the sudden changes that renourishment can have on the existing surfing amenity and inshore habitat (recreational fishing), as well as sand supply, are very topical at present. Offshore submerged structures can be used to greatly increase the residence time of renourishment material, by dissipating wave energy before it gets to the beach, modifying nearshore wave and current directions and developing new control points for beach orientation. Combined with the huge surfing population in this coast, well designed multi-purpose reefs could play a large role in future coastal management in the region.

Bournemouth, UK – Following a bathymetry survey to determine the existing seabed profile at Boscombe (the beach underwent large scale beach renourishment earlier this year), the final container layout for the 13,000 m3 reef has been completed. Elco in Australia are providing the 55 mega-containers, while Carillion (a large British marine construction company) will be undertaking the construction. The reef is composed of 2 layers of sand-filled geo-containers, which have been divided into 5 sections for construction (3 in the bottom layer and 2 in the top). With summer’s arrival in the northern hemisphere, construction can proceed through till at least November – the northern hemisphere’s strong seasonal aspect is a great advantage for construction, although not for surfers…

Mount Maunganui, NZ – With the summer over on NZ’s northeastern coast, it’s time to complete construction of the Mount reef. Construction took a step backwards with the removal of the large T4 (60 m x 5 m x 2.4 m high) from the right side of the Mount reef and the loss of fill from the focus area of the reef (due to the contractor’s failure tie-off filling ports as prescribed). The remedial work will lead to the completion of the reef over the winter. As described in the previous update (February), although not complete (see latest survey pic), when the conditions are right (mid to low tide, 1-1.5 m, clean swell) the Mount reef is producing the barrels it was designed to produce (both left and rights had there days through March and April) and showing its finished potential – the main difference being completion of the focus: longer rides from the take-off and a defined breaking peak even in the more marginal surfing conditions. Keep an eye on www.mountreef.co.nz .

Port Elizabeth, SA – We are currently moving into physical modelling for 4 projects in Port Elizabeth that range from creating sheltered swimming to increasing the width of the beach, all with an eye on enhancing the surfing amenity. There are various stages for the different projects, with different combinations of reefs and objectives in each case. For instance, Wells Estate is a Blue Flag beach (the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality certification that tells you it’s one of their best), however, the beach is relatively exposed, and although it is patrolled, the provision of a sheltered swimming area would be greatly utilized by the local beach goers. With the relatively small tidal range, submerged structures can be designed to create sheltered swimming, with surfing on the exposed sides of the structures providing a variety of surfing breaks. At Pollok Beach, a wider beach is required for both amenity and erosion protection. Here, an oblique submerged structure is being considered to create a wider beach at Pollok as well as stabilize and add 150 m the ephemeral offshore banks that lead into Avalanche, a fast hollow right, when there’s sand…

Opunake, NZ – Unlike the northern hemisphere, the summer doesn’t go flat for long on NZ’s West Coast. Kicking off again this February, the team is presently waiting for an extended calm period; a construction window. Some of the summer windows were missed (set-up, unavailable crew, dodgy weather when it was predicted to be good, etc), although Hydracare were able set-up the new pumping system and demonstrated the massive filling rates it could achieve over 400 m distance, filling a T3 (290 m3) in just a few hours. With the short duration of the calm weather windows in this area, high pumping rates are crucial. Moving into winter, construction windows become less and less frequent, although you never can tell with Hughie…

Ron Jon’s Surfpark, Orlando – The final design of the pro-pool (100 m x 36 m) is well underway following the successful completion of the training pool testing phase earlier this year. Only an hour or so from Cocoa Beach and the coast, located in the world’s highest concentration of fun and theme parks and right next to one of the (if not ‘the’) biggest surfing shops in the world (Ron Jon’s) and the Van’s Skatepark, it would be harder to find a better site than Festival Bay. The current schedule is to be ‘breaking ground’ for the pro-pool by the end of the year. Check out www.surfparks.com for a run down on the site and latest news.

Always Offshore

Dr. Shaw Mead and Dr. Kerry Black

www.asrltd.co.nz