Reef company making waves worldwide

Surf's up for Raglan company Artificial Surf Reefs, and so is business.

After starting installation of New Zealand's first artificial surfing reef in Mt Maunganui on the weekend, the company - which specialises in designing and building ocean reefs - is about to start on more international projects.

Managing director Dr Kerry Black said the innovation ASR had shown in building the rugby field-sized reef in Mt Maunganui had attracted international attention and New Zealand was now seen as the leading exporter of surfing reefs.

"New Zealand has now set its position up worldwide, where the demand [for artificial reefs] is really big," said Black.

But first the company will get to work in Opunake in South Taranaki, where construction of a $1 million surfing reef is expected to start in March.

ASR previously designed, but didn't build, the reef at Narrowneck on the Gold Coast in Queensland. The Mt Maunganui reef is the first it has built, but is unlikely to be the last.

ASR is scheduled to build Europe's first artificial surfing reef in Bournemouth, southern England, in 18 months. It is also pitching for a project in New Jersey, US, and was due to sign a contract for a project in Southern India, said Black.

The Mt Maunganui reef - a smaller version of the famous Hawaiian Pipeline reef - required some clever thinking on ASR's part to hold the budget at $1 million.

Instead of deploying the 70 geotextile bags that form the reef one by one down to a mat anchored to the seabed, as was usually done, Black designed a system in which the empty bags were attached to a web lattice on land and then the whole assembly pulled to the sea floor 240m off the beach where they were pumped full of sand.

The V-shaped reef, with two 70m by 30m arms, is expected to be finished in the next few days and is the result of a nine-year project.

The Mount Reef Trust, which raised the money to build it, has estimated the reef would return more than 30 times its cost through visitor spending.

ASR will also be making waves in a giant indoor wave pool in Florida by February, through its partner company Surf Pools.

Surf Pools partnered with one of the world's biggest operators of surf pool systems, US-based Aquatic Development Group, for the $14 million Florida pool which will be 30m by 75m or about the size of four Olympic swimming pools.

Black is the major shareholder in both companies.