Coastalsurvey

After a decade of planning and 14 months of construction, Boscombe Reef near Bournemouth on England’s south coast, opened for business last week. It is one of only a handful of reefs in the world that were intentionally created for surfing.

A picture of the reef at Bournemouth, UK

In the few days since its official opening, the Boscombe Surf Reef has shown some potential, creating a barreling righthander in an area generally known for uninspiring beach breaks. It’s also created a cadre of gnarly locals, as Ben Mondy dryly reports  in the Independent.

Bournemouth is a popular beach destination about 2.5 hours southwest of London. The town already has a surfing population, and the town council funded the reef project as part of a forward-looking tourism and development plan. The reef is already one of the selling points of a new beach apartment complex called the Overstrand. You can learn more about the project on Bournemouth’s website.

The Boscombe Surf Reef is one of a select few man-made reefs created expressly for surfing. In Western Australia, Cables reef near Cottesloe was built in 1998 and Narrowneck, off Queensland’s Gold Coast, opened in 1999. Both of the Aussie reefs have shown decent form in the right conditions. Pratte’s Reef — AKA Chevron Reef in El Segundo, California — hasn’t generated such good waves since it opened in 2000. The Mount Reef, constructed at Mount Maunganui on the northeast coast of New Zealand, has been one of the most successful, throwing a shapely A-frame peak on a good swell.

New Zealand company ASR Marine Consultants built the Boscombe Surf Reef and the Mount Reef. The ASR website has a lot of information about artificial reefs and their construction. See also consulting firm International Coastal Management for more on man-made reefs.