Coffs Harbour artificial reef plans in limbo

[eel]

With Sydney running out of sand, theres a thought of dredging sand from out at sea. I'm no scientist but would that not mean that the trenches that are made by the dredges would soon be filled in by sand further ashore and so forth causing coastal erosion? If that's so would sand banks become a thing of the past?

http://m.smh.com.au/nsw/city-built-on-s ... 311gq.html

[alakaboo]

No.

[rmb]

Is there anywhere to view the design's of the proposed reefs online?? There's plenty of spot's with potential that only need something for the sand to form around maybe like the wreck in Byron.

[Indo dreaming]

What we often forget is erosion is totally natural, winds, waves, tides and ocean levels have been changing the shape and location of coastline forever.

Much of our coastal dunes are also covered in marram grass which is an introduced sp and a lot better at stabilising our dunes than other native grasses/plants so technically our dunes are far from there natural state.
http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds ... enaria.htm

[swvic]

Marram grass is an abomination. Causes dune fronts to get steeper and when they collapse we lose more than had they been left in the natural state. As far as I know, it's still being used

[steve shearer]

Yeah look I don't know if it's fcuken dawned on anyone but there's an insane number of unridden waves breaking in Australia all the fcuken time.

They're not exactly a scarce resource except at maybe a dozen or so famous and grossly overcrowded locations. Drive 20 mins from most of those locations and you'll find good waves with a handful of people out.

Drive another 40mins to an hour and surf pretty much by yourself.

That's the reality of it, another reality is that surfing is not exactly a social necessity, I mean why the FCUK would anyone seriously propose that councils and State governments spend millions of dollars rendering an artificial reef when there's people who actually NEED social services, like for fcuk's sake.

As far as Surf Management Plans go, well the day some self-elected Gold Coast Surf Council tries to "manage" me into surfing somewhere is the day said Council's members will be vainly trying to remove an MC deep concave from their prominent arseholes.

Resist this nonsense god damn it.

I'd like to rebut the logic of this argument.

[PeepeelaPew]

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[alakaboo]

Groynes work well if there is longshore drift.
Pretty much by definition they make good surf breaks, but the better they are for protection (how they get built/funded) the worse they are for surfing.
In order to make them work well for protection you have to balance the spacing, angle and length of the groynes to try and even out the shoreline width. This removes the irregular peaks and rebound wedges that we prefer.

In general, coastal engineering principles are opposed to what surfers want. Focussing energy is a no-no for erosion prevention.

I think offshore structures that focus energy have the most potential for 'artificial' wave generation. Like artificial reefs, but in deeper water to refract swells rather than make them break. Far less precision is needed, you just let the shoreline respond to the wave distortion.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[steve shearer]

I think offshore structures that focus energy have the most potential for 'artificial' wave generation. Like artificial reefs, but in deeper water to refract swells rather than make them break. Far less precision is needed, you just let the shoreline respond to the wave distortion.

Triple bottom line: surf enhancement, habitat and coastal protection.

No secret but almost every beach that has an inshore reef structure has improved wave quality due to that ability to refract incoming swells and make them approach the shore at differing angles.

I can't see any other solution to the problem of increasing coastal population scrapping for the same wave resource but to create artificial reefs. Not for everywhere, but certainly for the urban megalopolis of SEQLD.

[alakaboo]

Yeah, what Steve said.
I meant big things offshore. They don't have to be engineered, they can be any old thing. Making them fishing/diving reefs would make them more palatable and politically friendly.
Andy Pitt has done some research on bombora-controlled beach breaks.

Groyne fields are hard to design in places with different seasonal flow of sand, they're mainly used in places where the sand goes one way (and fairly fast).

Great angles at 2:40 or so in that clip.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[steve shearer]

they have Narrowneck and there was an aborted plan for a reef at Palm Beach.

[alakaboo]

Once bitten twice shy...surfing reefs are a hard sell on the Goldy.

There was a plan to sink some warships off the coast a year or so ago, that could've been good.
Some sort of deal with the Russian navy for free boats fell through and Govt. didn't want to stump up the difference.

[marauding mullet]

The Bay of Plenty in Durban is a long beach with a series of rock groynes, awesome surf with some variety but mostly quite heavy duty. They get the swell though.

[carvin marvin]

[Beanpole]

Well it's obviously in the right place if its anywhere near Coffs. Limbo that is.

More chance of knocking out a few waves than making new ones.
Surfers really have an over inflated sense of the importance of surfing to the general public.

[Beanpole]

Once bitten twice shy...surfing reefs are a hard sell on the Goldy.

There was a plan to sink some warships off the coast a year or so ago, that could've been good.
Some sort of deal with the Russian navy for free boats fell through and Govt. didn't want to stump up the difference.

Yeah let's drop a few old rusty nuclear submarines off Surfers Paradose.