Shellharbour Marina

Perhaps something in south through to east swells, though I wonder how that curved section of wall reflects energy. All the good breakwall rebounds have long straight lengths that face roughly towards the swell source.

Slightly OT: I recently found an 'SOS - Save Our Shallows' sticker from the campaign against the first iteration of this project.

That was 36 years ago.

you would think with a bit of thought it wouldnt be hard to make a surfable reef off whats already been done .....

A lot of breakwalls create wedges but two i know of just create a shallow sandbank around the groyne.
no wedges on those two. I agree with Stu, that breakwall looks like it doesnt face east enough, maybe a north swell would create wedges..by the way even though i ride a bodyboard, i find Newport wedge the most over rated wave in bodyboarding next to waimea shorey.
A certain natural rock wedge on the south east coast needs ese swells for wedges, the beach faces north east but the swell needs to hit the rocks on an angle.. which create peaks about 200-300 metres up the beach, you can take off close to the rocks on the inside, link up with an incoming set, pull into a 5 second tube launch an air, off the back continue on the sidewash standing up and continue to link up three or four waves with different airs off the back of each wave in the set...untill eventually you pull into a closeout...better than south straddie imo.
One of the only places ive ever pulled a twisted air reverse..also one of the only places i can do airs on a shortboard.

I live in the area.

The rock wall has been finished months ago and the marina is ready to be used.

I have been keeping an eye on this spot for long enough to say that it produces zero banks at the moment.

It's weird as the middle of the small leftover beach to the North seems to attract a lot of swell energy, mostly close outs and north of the entrance tgere are a couple of average reefbreaks that occasionally produce ok waves but around the groyne formations, Northand South, you get nothing as it seems to be all too deep.

I hope it changes but I don't think that we have enough sand flow in this area for this to happen.

Yeah, the south coast doesn't have a conveyor belt of sand in the longshore current, such as the NSW north coast does - they're all embayments - and the marina isn't large enough for a tidal delta to form anywhere.

Reckon if a wave hasn't formed yet, then unfortunately it won't form.

When I did the wave tank physical modelling for my reef concept (see video on offshoresurfreefs.com ) at the UNSW Water Research Lab Manly in 2004, the wave tank was setup for the modelling of the
proposed marina breakwalls which are now built. I asked the Shellharbour Council engineer in charge of the project at the time if they would consider incorporating a surf break into the nth breakwall, as it would have been a great location and a unique opportunity for a new surf break. Reply- good idea but no budget for this, and safety concerns over conflict between boating using the marina entrance area and surfers.

steveb wrote:

When I did the wave tank physical modelling for my reef concept (see video on offshoresurfreefs.com ) at the UNSW Water Research Lab Manly in 2004, the wave tank was setup for the modelling of the
proposed marina breakwalls which are now built. I asked the Shellharbour Council engineer in charge of the project at the time if they would consider incorporating a surf break into the nth breakwall, as it would have been a great location and a unique opportunity for a new surf break. Reply- good idea but no budget for this, and safety concerns over conflict between boating using the marina entrance area and surfers.

Bummer.

Interestingly there seems to be slightly better right handers breaking on some of the patches of reef just north of Shallows. A few crew have been saying it has been fun (nothing special though). Can't remember it being any good there before the marina went in.

Further to what Stu said above, the outward curve of the breakwall would tend to dissipate the swell energy rather than compress it. What they could have easily done with not much cost or effect on the boaters would be to have created a sort of notch or kink in the wall with a steep vertical surface at its end, well fill with rock so not very porous, not far outside the surf zone. This would create a wedge as wave energy would surge in and then surge up hit the wall bit and be redirected back on itself.

Often wedges come from a small 15 to 20 metre section of rock angled just right. They are the most economical and predictable in terms of rock / sand volume of all surf creating structures.

A missed opportunity.

Of course, the rebound set ups are often a mix of closeouts and peaks and far from classic set ups. Dbah is fortunate in terms of sand plus broken swells from the outside rip and the dominant wind swell peaky swell patterns.

A less fortunate version is in SA - check out the Knights beach SA camera to see one in action that in still shots can look amazing but in practice is low % peak action.

Knights has almost zero help from sand banks, limited help from peak swells (more ground swell actions) and a weak rebound. If they built a concrete wall along the slope of the Knights rock shelf above the water line for a reflection point it could double or triple the size of the rebound. Easy technically. Not so popular with the NIMBY crowd.

MrBungle wrote:

Interestingly there seems to be slightly better right handers breaking on some of the patches of reef just north of Shallows. A few crew have been saying it has been fun (nothing special though). Can't remember it being any good there before the marina went in.

Nah, it's just a close-out directly onto the rocks. Was cracking at first (only on really big swells - nothing at all when it was / is small), but now the beach has eroded between the break and breakwall, so even the wave when it is big has gone. 'Shoulda been here yesterday, you missedit!' or perhaps 'Shoulda seen it back in the day!'