Artificial Surfing Reef proposed in Florida

[Swellinfo]

Hypothetically, if the water was 20 feet deep and I could sink a 100 yard barrier that was 10 feet high would that be a reef that would be able to create good waves?

that would undoubtedly incluence the surf. Anytime you influence the ocean depths in the surf zone, you are going to alter the waves.

I have no clue about the specifics of the the proposed reef.

[mitchell]

I'm totally uneducated on the subject but how deep would they place the reef? After that, how high would it need to be built from the ground to effectively be considered a reef?

Hypothetically, if the water was 20 feet deep and I could sink a 100 yard barrier that was 10 feet high would that be a reef that would be able to create good waves?

I would say anything placed on the bottom to provide habitat or create a surf break would be considered a reef, regardless of how deep the water is or how high the reef is. We have artificial fishing reefs off Maryland and Delaware in 40 feet of water that stick up maybe 5-10 feet for fishing habitat.

your hypothetical reef would (10 feet under ignoring tides) and would generally cause any swell over 6 feet to break and would have not much effect on say a 3 foot swell. So wouldnt be ridabale often...a shallower artifical reef say 5 feet deep would cause the 3 foot swell to break, but would probably be a dry-reef shutdown on the 6 foot swell. For that reason most artificial reefs are designed to taper in depth so swells of different sizes can break on different parts of the reef.

MIcah, i think the coolest concept for the east coast are reefs like the one in Cornwall England (also swell starved) where the reef is designed to increase wave height by focussing the swell through concave refraction, and a rock break is placed adjacent to the reef to shelter the reef from prevailing winds...like in Delaware the wind break jetty would be up the beach to the NW of the reef a few hundred feet...!

[LVl<E]

in the aspect of beach replenishment...new jersey has been abused for years by the nonstop pumping of sand and the jetties that had been put in many years ago but in long branch they have found a different wat to replenish the beaches while saving and even helping many local surf breaks...the sand was all pumped onto one beach and as the sand was carried north with the current it would creat natural sand bars off the tips of the jetties while adding sand to the shore...there is all a proposed man made sand bar break for a popular local spot where the sand was pumped onto.

Also about 4 years ago the idea of a manmade reef was looked into for a 7 presidents(a local park system located on the ocean) however this was mearly for the use of recreation and not replenishment but the topic has not been talked about recently after the price tag for the project was unrealistic for their budget

[mitchell]

in long branch they have found a different wat to replenish the beaches while saving and even helping many local surf breaks...the sand was all pumped onto one beach and as the sand was carried north with the current it would creat natural sand bars off the tips of the jetties while adding sand to the shore

Have they actually done this and it DID improve the local surf breaks? I heard about this proposal, and was skeptical that it would actually improve things.