We’ve heard a lot of plans to build artificial surf reefs over the years. Some crazy, some impossible – but this one may just work.
Introducing Troy Bottegal from Perth in Australia. He’s come up with the AIRWAVE. It’s basically a giant 20m wide inflatable bubble attached to the sea bed.
When swell passes over the top of it, it will theoretically create a pitching wave that will peak and break, creating a perfect A-frame wave on a beach that previously had no surf.
“We could have decent waves in flat beach breaks like Hastings or Great Yarmouth”
Sounds pretty good, right? We could have decent waves in Hastings or Great Yarmouth. But how does to hold to the sea floor? After all, the sand is constantly shifting and a giant air bubble is naturally going to be seriously hard to pin down.
Well, Troy claims that they can use helical sand anchors that are strong enough to keep a 40ft boat down in a category three cyclone.
If it actually works, then there could be more surf spots than ever before. Which means less crowds. Which ultimately means happy surfers. Win-win!
However, it’s still in the testing stages. Even to do that is going require AUS $100,000 (just over £50,000). Get donating, so Troy can test it out for real.
Check out Troy’s AIRWAVE project on Kickstarter here.