Waves that break at the right angle and height are no longer a dream on the Gold Coast, reports GREG ANSLEY
GOLD COAST - Off the beach at Narrowneck, just up the coast from some of the world's great surfing breaks, New Zealand know-how is teaching Queenslanders a thing or two about waves.
In one of those rare blends of sporting passion and business realities, Waikato University Professor Kerry Black has placed New Zealand at the van of a growing global interest in artificial surfing reef design and created a new knowledge-based export industry.
Work is about to start at the Gold Coast on a reef at Narrowneck that will provide both a multi-million dollar revenue machine and an anchor for beach reclamation to help defend the major Australian resort centre against toughening competition.
Professor Black is now working with the Australian contractors involved in the Gold Coast project on similar reefs in California and New Zealand.
Artificial surfing reefs are still in their infancy, but hold enormous potential for a sport whose commercial development has for decades been held back by the lingering image of 1960s beach bums and - more importantly - notoriously inconsistent or remote competitive arenas.
As baby boomer beach bums have matured into businesspeople, professionals, academics and the like - taking their surfboards with them into middle age - and modern surfing has evolved into a highly professional circuit, potential returns are enormous.
For the Gold Coast, Professor Black's sophisticated computer modelling, developed after extensive study of the world's best surfing reefs, is a plum that will significantly help claw back the $A8 million capital cost of the total beach restoration and beautification project.
The project had its genesis in a series of severe cyclones in 1967 which tore away the beaches that put the gold in the Gold Coast and led to the commissioning of a report by Holland's Delft Hydraulics Laboratory which recommended a major stabilisation programme.
Severe storms and erosion in 1996 exposed the inadequacy of works that pumped 1.4 million cubic metres of sand to the beaches.
The Gold Coast City Council also recognised an urgent need for more open space along the beachfront - with a price tag of about $A30 million for resumption of existing development.
Instead, it opted for a $A8 million scheme to dredge sand from navigation channels and widening the beachfront.
Professor Black's reef is central to this, acting as the hydraulic anchor for the reclamation work and creating a perfect wave for an industry that directly employs 1200 people on the coast and attracts tens of thousands of Australian and international surfers annually.
The reef will be made of vast, specially-designed sandbags weighing up to 300 tonnes each, laid in a V-shape that will provide right-hand breaking waves on one side, and left-peeling waves on the other, with a lagoon in the middle.
The reef will push up a shapeless three-quarter metre swell into ideally-shaped 1.5m waves, all but guaranteeing waves not only for casual surfers, but also for professional surfing contests.
One major contest brings an extra $A2.5 million into the Gold Coast - more than the reef will cost to build - and the consistency and public access at the site will be a key selling point in the coast's bid to grab more of the world circuit.
Finally, surfing has good business vibrations.
Good vibes for surfing business
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