How To Generate The World's Largest Surfing Wave

Waves might seem like ephemeral creatures, one day gently lapping at the shore and the next inexplicably crashing down in a frothy torrent, but they actually follow some fairly predictable patterns -- patterns which are appreciated by nobody more than those who live for a day of surfing or the rare surfing engineer in the business of making better waves.

Wavy Science

Most ocean waves are generated by wind -- the energy of the wind rubbing on the water creates waves that are similar to other types of waves like sound waves -- but from there a whole assortment of factors can affect their evolution.

For example, both a wind's speed and duration affect how strong the waves are, as well as the fetch, or geographic area the wind covers. The more forcefully all three of these factors manifest, the more impressive the resulting waves; and this generally means they're derived from a big low pressure storm system.

Once the waves are underway, they eventually can escape the influence of the original breeze that set them on their course. Waves can travel for hundreds or even thousands of miles, interacting and mingling along the way, but once they near shore, things start to happen in a hurry.

Coming Ashore

The features along a shoreline have a big impact on the waves that strike there. In more shallow areas, as swells approach, they typically begin to lose energy from the friction due to their passing so close to the seafloor. Slowing down causes something of a traffic jam, and those crests still further offshore begin to crowd in and the waves grow taller in response to the pressure. Eventually this height, along with the slowing at the base of the waves, causes them to tumble forward, producing the classic sight of in-rushing waves.

In deeper waters, there isn't as much drag to slow them down and the waves tend to continue towards the shore in powerful climbing repetition. Local wind blowing towards or along the shore can topple or scatter waves, but a gentle breeze blowing outward can be just the thing to keep the prominent waves from tumbling too soon.

Breaks, like point breaks on rocky prominences or reef breaks on coral reefs or rocky seafloors, help promote those giant crashing waves that surfers find so perfect. But if conditions aren't naturally conducive, some surfers take matters into their own hands.

Building Breaks

Dr. Kerry Black, director of marine research at the consulting company Amalgamates Solutions and Research (ASR, Ltd.), and his team have modeled the characteristics of dozens of existing shorelines and reefs as well as consulted on a number of artificial reef-building projects. They have immersed themselves in projects that include everything from designing a land-based infrastructure in the U.K. to a computer-controlled, movable reef floor for an Orlando, Fla. surf park.

In their home country of New Zealand, the company also constructed a reef on Mount Maunganui.

"I've been over a couple of times myself during the mid-September swell [in 2008]," Dr. Shaw Mead, another director at ASR and a member of the Mount Reef Trust wrote on the trust's Web site.

"I was pretty stoked to see someone get barreled from the focus to the end of the right-hander as I was paddling out!"

Although not universally popular, artificial reefs -- especially those encompassing environmentally-friendly components -- have the potential to not only improve the waves for surfers, but also to help decrease beach erosion and promote marine life.

Not like the wave pools you find at water parks that generate waves, these reefs are designed to simply amplify and manipulate incoming waves. And while nature still has her say when it comes to wave conditions, by replicating features found in natural reefs -- like the angle and gradient -- artificial reefs are able to bring fairly reliable results to places where it wasn't previously possible to surf.

Article posted on April 20, 2009

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