The Bizarre Split Hulled Barge that Built Narrowneck Reef
Photo: Australian Surfing Reef Design
CN: Right, and the influence of the reef is dependent
on the size of the thing. Like everything -- you start manipulating the ocean
you don't know what the end result will be. The Army Corps of Engineers has
been building stuff in the ocean for 200 years and every time they build something
they still run into problems. The ocean system is so complex and dynamic.
The myth that artificial surf reefs are the panacea
is nothing but a myth. It's just a structure out there. It might work in some
places, it might not work in others. But it's not some sort of a silver bullet.
My concern is that they're going to tap into that
fantasy that every surfer has got to make that perfect wave. Lured by the hope
of a perfect wave, we're going to let our guard down and let things happen that
probably shouldn't. At this point, with only three artificial surf reefs made
and only one working, sometimes means that we've got a long way to go to understand
how these things work.
Oilpiers, RIP
Photo: Sharp/Surfline
CD:
Pratte's Reef was first discussed in the 80's and it wasn't until the new millennium
that it was finally built. Seems interesting that it takes so long for this
sort of thing to go through the pipe. What led to this quicker decision on Oil
Piers? Was it the fact that Oil Piers lost its wave after the pier was removed?
CN: I think that was a factor. The Corps was looking
for some places to experiment with these things. And it's also a place where
there's not much harm to be done. In some respects it'll be a great place and
a great experiment.
CD: What about other municipalities in America
where this might happen?
The Fascinating, 'Y' Shaped,
Floatable Reef
Proposed by Stanleys Reef Foundation
CN:
There's been a lot of talk on the East Coast in New Jersey and other places.
But one of the big hurdles of this is that they're experimental and unproven.
It's going to be hard to get somebody to throw a lot of money at a project when
it might cost more than standard techniques. That's always the hurdle of any
new technology. A lot of people are very enthusiastic about this -- and of course
getting a new surf spot is a very alluring idea.
CD: I'd also think you'd get interest from fishermen
and property owners whose homes are built close to the water. But again -- if
it doesn't work.
CN: You get burned. I mean, we've definitely taken
a lot of flak for Pratte's reef not being a success.
CD: Do you think the expectations for Pratte's
were too high?
CN: I don’t know if success was promised as
much as it was expected. Everyone hears 'artificial surf reef' and the first
thing they envision is Uluwatu or something. There were a lot of misconceptions
about what Pratte's could do. When it finally came time for it to be built,
the money didn't go too far.
CD: I heard people actually cut the geotextile
sand bags at Pratte's Reef.
CN: I don't think that was ever the case. Some
were damaged during construction. That was sort of inevitable.
In Australia, the bags were twice the size of a
VW bus and they used what's called a split hulled barge to dump them. The bag
falls out through the middle.
In El Segundo at Pratte's we didn't have access
to a harbor that close. We went out with a barge and a crane and lifted the
bags. Some got damaged.
CD: Will they use Geotextile bags in Ventura?
CN: I imagine that will be a requirement to get
the approval to build. These bags -- the technology is improving all the time,
but they're not going to last forever obviously .
CD: Where are the places internationally showing
interest in this?
CN:
The thing that surprised me was that there were these little towns in New Zealand
that have 1500 or 2500 people. These towns already have surfing, or have the
potential. And they're clamoring for artificial surf reefs because they think
it's going to be this incredible tourist draw. These communities, including
the local surfers, want a reef to attract surfing to their community because
they think it's going to generate income. The conference was held in Raglan,
which is famous for these big, huge lefts. By New Zealand standards, Raglan
is a pretty hopping surf town-- a town that surfing built. And I think a lot
of other towns are saying 'we can get a lot of economic development out of getting
a surf reef and getting more surfers into town'. Which is so funny to me here
because we're overrun with surfers here. The last thing any Southern California
surfer wants is to attract more surfers into their community.
CD: Say you put a reef between Churches and
San Onofre Point -- where you see those big shorepound closeouts on a big swell.
A lot of times I'll think, Gee it'd be nice to have an artificial reef out there
when we get a swell. I'll bet you could create a killer wave. But it would probably
be just as crowded as Lowers and everywhere else.
CN: The big issue of Surfer mag just said, 'hey
reefs will spread the crowds'. Well, I did some quick back of the envelope calculations
on that. We've got 800,000 surfers in California. If you do the math, then you
have, maybe 8,000 surf spots in California. That still averages out to 100 guys
per spot. If you add 1000 artificial surf reefs, you're going to reduce the
crowd by what, ten guys? That's 1000 reefs.
Cross-Section of Stanley's PVC Pipe Reef
There's this thing in traffic called the iceberg
effect -- if you look at an iceberg above water you're only seeing about 20
percent of the thing. In traffic the theory is that you're going to reduce traffic
by building more roads. But what you actually do is just draw more people out
onto the roads. People may think 'oh there's all this room'. I think that principle
could apply to surfing reefs. I think the notion that you can eliminate crowds
in California by adding a surf reef is kind of absurd.
CD: Ten years from now if we were having this
conversation. What do you think we will have learned?
At Cables, the Reef Partially
Sank.
CN:
I think just like all the other coastal structures out there, you'll have a
mixed bag of successes and a bunch of failures. But one of my biggest fears
is that people are going to let some development or armoring project go through
on the basis that they're going to get an artificial surf reef somewhere else.
Wetlands mitigation is the best analogy. We'll fill up these natural wetlands
over here for this development, but to mitigate, we'll create new wetlands over
here. The ones they build are never as good as the natural ones, and my biggest
fear is that they're going to roll over on some project where they get promised
a reef that may or may not pan out.
The other question is that these things are built,
partially because they're experimental, but mostly out of sand bags. And everything
that's built in the ocean gets pretty beat up. So the question becomes how long
are these things going to last?
Hopefully the science will continue to improve
and we'll better understand how the waves break. These guys at ASR, I think
they're going to do some pretty decent fieldwork to try and get a handle on
what's going out there at Oil Piers. But it's just so complex and it's hard
to predict everything.
Chad Nelson Talks About Construction of Pratte's
Reef
http://www.usc.edu/dept/tsunamis/video/reef/
ASR -- The Company that Built Narrowneck Reef
http://www.asrltd.co.nz/
More on Narrowneck
http://www.narrowneck.com/
Stanley's Reef was competing against ASR for
the Ventura project. They have a fascinating idea for a mobile, Y Shaped
reef made of PVC piping that can be floated if it needs to be moved. And you
can count on some more coverage of this technology in the near future from us.
http://www.stanleysreef.org
More on Newquay and its proposed reef.
http://www.surfnewquay.co.uk/
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