Surfers' artificial reef to be rolled out

The first half of an artificial surf reef is ready to be laid on the seabed at Mount Maunganui.

The 12 geotextile bags and big mat, sewn and tied together to a webbing lattice, are sitting on a barge at the Mount wharf waiting for five days of flat seas.

As soon as a period of settled weather arrives, the barge will sail to the construction site and the right hand side of the delta-wing reef will be offloaded and anchored on the seabed.

The bags will then be pumped with 3500 cubic metres of sand and when they are full the 70m long reef portion -- at least one half of the total reef -- will be ready for surfing.

David Neilson, Mount Reef Trust executive officer, said it will take 100 hours of round-the-clock pumping to fill the bags with sand.

"The swell is picking up this week and we are at the mercy of the weather. As soon as we know there will be five days of flat water we will be out there," he said.

The dredging, diving and pumping equipment, including a 200m long suction pipe, will be ready to use by the end of the week.

The first stage of building the country's first artificial surf reef was completed on Sunday when the 30m square geotextile mat was sewn to the lattice and the different-sized bags with tags on them were tied every two metres along the webbing rails.

The reef, a smaller version of the Hawaiian Pipeline, will be built 0.4m below the lowest tide level, and about 50 surfers at one time will be able to use it, taking off in two different directions.

- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES