Gold Coast $$$$ per wave

I agree Shaun, it will clear all of those dole bludgers out of the the line-up, that's got to be good for surfing and the Gold Coast.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/paywave-plan-as-gold-coast...

I think that fines for surf rage might be appropriate if it gets physical, it could be classed as assault...........i will NEVER pay to surf at a public beach......ever!

Ha! As if this would ever happen. 

some kind of surf management has been on the drawing board for years and will soon be a reality for the Gold Coast.

In the sixties surfboards were licensed in Warringah and you could be fined for riding a board without a sticker, so it is possible, though unlikely.

thermalben wrote:

Ha! As if this would ever happen. 

That's it Ben bury that head in the sand. You old ostrich.

So, how will they implement the fee? Is it per surfer, or per surfboard? What if you leave your pass at home? Will they have one huge bardcode scanner in the Rainbow Bay apartments, aiming a red beam across the lineup that constantly price-checks for strays and vagrants?

How will they enforce crowd control at particular breaks? Will it be between individual marker buoys? Will surfers be allocated a set amount of waves? Or perhaps a limited number of tubes and turns per session?

How will surfers receive accreditation for their level of ability? What if you're having a shitty day - are you demoted? Alternatively, if you're absolutely tearing the bag during one session, are you granted an upgrade? Is a surfers accreditation reassessed monthly, annually or whenever they purchase a new surfboard?

How about travelling surfers? Will they be exempt? Or will they have to pre-purchase their surfs in advance?

Gosh, I could go on for ever.

meeting happening soon about use of Gold Coast Beaches. This meeting will discuss beach use, erosion controls, future planning and contests.
Rabbit will be attending, and we have spoken about it being too hard to police charging surfers to surf.
But the main agenda we will be bringing forth is the creation of a series of artificial reefs along Gold Coast beaches.
Not only will this help erosion control, break storm surf further out to sea in huge conditions, but of course create surfing breaks. All of these are agenda issues.
There are some councillors already on side as it meets all the criteria contained in the Gold Coast City Council Beach Management Plan. So Swellnet geniuses, if you have any suggestions for building a reef that will produce rideable waves but help erosion issues, we would love to hear them. Already discussed about having a dredge working up and down coast creating banks and clearing bars plus alleviating erosion.

davetherave wrote:

So Swellnet geniuses, if you have any suggestions for building a reef that will produce rideable waves but help erosion issues, we would love to hear them. Already discussed about having a dredge working up and down coast creating banks and clearing bars plus alleviating erosion.

Probably the most viable option is a (non-permanent) sand slug. We have discussed this a lot on Swellnet over the years.. see these articles and their comments for more info:

https://www.swellnet.com/news/surfpolitik/2011/07/28/cronullas-latest-su...

https://www.swellnet.com/news/swellnet-dispatch/2012/06/26/mechanics-san...

There will be a surf management plan for the Gold Coast.

what that entails and how it is policed is yet to be determined but it is happening.

The council is onboard and as we have seen during the QuikPro they have the legislative power to enforce the surf zone.

freeride76 wrote:

There will be a surf management plan for the Gold Coast.

The following was sent to me by Brad Farmer a week or so ago:

Surf zone management plan to get input from various groups

18 September, 2014 - Various organizations will have representatives at the upcoming Surf Management Plan Advisory Committee on the Gold Coast next week. The forthcoming meeting on Sept 29 comes after much laboring by local groups including the NSR and Gold Coast Surf Council. The event will be hosted by the City of Gold Coast to develop and implement a surf management plan.

The Gold Coast is currently home to three National Surfing Reserves: Burleigh, Currumbin and Superbank-Kirra – the southern point breaks. Brought on by the formation of a city-wide representative surf council (Gold Coast) in late 2012, it is anticipated this historic Surfer Policy Statement formulation will set the benchmark for all world surf cities.  
 
There is a cross-section of views on how to present, articulate and propose local government ‘by-laws’, if necessary, for present and future challenges for surf zone management. The Gold Coast Surf Council was formed to address unavoidable changes of development and population growth as they place pressure on surfing amenities in the area.

A Surf Management Plan would provide a framework to address increasing demands for surfing experiences with the limited capacity of the city’s surfing resources through a partnership between surfing community and State and Local Government.

thermalben wrote:

davetherave wrote:

So Swellnet geniuses, if you have any suggestions for building a reef that will produce rideable waves but help erosion issues, we would love to hear them. Already discussed about having a dredge working up and down coast creating banks and clearing bars plus alleviating erosion.

Probably the most viable option is a (non-permanent) sand slug. We have discussed this a lot on Swellnet over the years.. see these articles and their comments for more info:

https://www.swellnet.com/news/surfpolitik/2011/07/28/cronullas-latest-su...

https://www.swellnet.com/news/swellnet-dispatch/2012/06/26/mechanics-san...

thanks ben
does cronulla have huge south to north sweep like here, or would sand slug get washed away quicker.
Initial thoughts, critiques welcomed, build little sand fences on angles- 2-3 high, heights worked out as per site, water depth etc etc,. sand accumulates ocean side of fence, creating left or right surfing break. The sand build up inside the fences will move as you create a current by having gaps between left and right fences. If public liability an issue, put tyres on top of fences to soften wipeouts. Marine creatures will soon colonise. U would have fences catching sand, having good waves break, it would also stop storm swells plus introduce new marine environments. May not have good waves all the time, but increases the chance of more surf breaks, aids in erosion control and gets storm surf losing energy further out to sea.
any other ideas, because really this council is ready for suggestions at the moment. we need more surf breaks here.

Yep, never happen Ben. Load of the proverbial.
Davetherave - go sandslugs mate. Anything that is permanent will go down (like Palmy reef last time) and anything that has a substantial cost to it will go down too.
Don't fall for the Council 'we are looking for suggestions' crapola. Any more than one suggestion for Council is like putting an Irishman in a 44 gallon drum and telling him to piss in a corner...very confusing!!
Andrew Pitt from Surfing Ramps seemed to have the best handle on the logistics of and slugs and has presented this to the Surf Council and Dan Ware.
I believe that Cr Greg Betts from Burleigh liked the idea. It needs a political champion to chaperone it through the various process hurdles it will come across.

Surfing fees/licenses and general crowd control/policing won't happen. 

Realistically, artificial reefs are the best way to deal with overcrowding. And the safest way to implement this is - rather than building 'surfing reefs' per se - is to position large reefs some distance offshore from the major beaches, that can break up the swell lines into peaks (much in the way the offshore coffee rock does this at a number of Sunshine Coast beaches). 

If we could increase the reliability and quality of the beachbreaks (especially on the northern end of the coast) we'd have a much better case for alleviating stress on the southern points. 

There's no possible way you can say before hand that some kind of policing won't happen, even if that takes the form of extra lifeguards with expanded powers patrolling the lineups on weekends. Unless you are part of the process it's not possible a priori to make a statement about what will or won't happen. All we know for certain is that something will happen. A surf management plan with Councils backing is happening. Council have the powers to enforce the surf zone, aka the bathing reserve.

Totally agree about the offshore structure approach.

What happened to the sand slug trial at Cronulla?

Is there any representatives attending the committee that will be proposing the sand slug option for increasing the surfable coastline?

thermalben wrote:

If we could increase the reliability and quality of the beachbreaks (especially on the northern end of the coast) we'd have a much better case for alleviating stress on the southern points. 

Yeah agree. Surely someone can sell the dream of turning Surfers Paradise back into a 'Surfers Paradise' in the name of the tourist dollar alone. Whatever shaped sand bank there is out the back of south straddie needs to be replicated out front of Cavill.

Ok then, it is my opinion that surfing fees/licenses and general crowd control/policing won't happen.

Let's presume for a moment that the enforceable rules are (as we've been led to believe) a derivative of the following:

1. All recreational surfers must have a license to surf at surf break X
2. Only X number of surfers can surf at surf break X
3. Only recreational surfers who have accredited surf skills X can surf at surf spot X

How would a lifeguard or police officer enforce any these rules in a real world example? Are they going to check licenses before surfers rock off? Will lifeguards zoom into the shallows to check a surfer's credentials before he paddles back out?

I know I'm playing semantics but using the Quiksilver Pro jetski bouncers as a litmus test isn't valid because it was an exception to the norm. Simply parking next to a buoy and making sure surfers don't paddle past that point is relatively simple in isolation. The ever-changing dynamics of a busy surf break won't allow for such easy policing on a day to day basis.

That's all speculation.

We'll probably have a clearer idea about what is on the table after the proposed meeting of the surf council next week.

In the mean-time it's worth having a squizz at their draft management plan. http://surfcouncil.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/surf-management-plan-stru...

thanks fellas
i think cost and uncertainty of success is big issue too
My favourite is that both the Gold and Tweed Shire Councils buy a dredge. They can even hire it out to other councils to generate revenue. But closer to home they can keep waterways open, pump sand back onto beach if eroded and also create a huge sandbank out the back if they know storm event is happening. But, twice a week they have to go from the seawall to bilinga and build up, pump away sand that creates surfable wave's along the coastline. In northerlies they create lefts, in southerlies they create rights. I think this thing could be about this surf/erosion issue, but paid parking meters at beaches will pop up it's ugly head i reckon.

freeride76 wrote:

TWhat happened to the sand slug trial at Cronulla?

Political manouevring at the 11th hour meant it failed to reach it's potential. Think 75,000 m3 was supposed to be dumped but a new restaurant at South Cronulla, Zimzala, wanted some of that sand to be dumped on the exposed rock in the corner at South Cronulla beach directly in front of their dining area. 

So did it produce surfable waves?

I'm wondering if the increased longshore sand transport on the Gold Coast would mean sand slugs might be a very inefficient and temporary way of creating surf.

Yes it did Steve, couple of shots of the left it created and the swell 'feeling the slug' and bending the swell lines on a full tide.

so how stable is that bank craig? I tried to google some reports but couldnt find any :(
how often do they need to redump some sand?

Cheers

The bank was only temporary and took a while to form apparently.

The idea is initially the slug just refracts and breaks up the swell lines more than if it wasn't there, then over time the sand slowly fills in towards shore and this time it made that left.

There's more about it here.. https://www.swellnet.com/news/surfpolitik/2011/07/28/cronullas-latest-su...

Those banks look alright, I'll take 3 dozen from billinga to the spit.

Ok... I reckon they should get the Gold Coast meter maids on long boards, paddling up and down checking surfers ankle tags with a scanner doo-hickey of sorts!

They can check my knob for free.

thermalben wrote:

Ok then, it is my opinion that surfing fees/licenses and general crowd control/policing won't happen.

Let's presume for a moment that the enforceable rules are (as we've been led to believe) a derivative of the following:

1. All recreational surfers must have a license to surf at surf break X
2. Only X number of surfers can surf at surf break X
3. Only recreational surfers who have accredited surf skills X can surf at surf spot X

How would a lifeguard or police officer enforce any these rules in a real world example? Are they going to check licenses before surfers rock off? Will lifeguards zoom into the shallows to check a surfer's credentials before he paddles back out?

I know I'm playing semantics but using the Quiksilver Pro jetski bouncers as a litmus test isn't valid because it was an exception to the norm. Simply parking next to a buoy and making sure surfers don't paddle past that point is relatively simple in isolation. The ever-changing dynamics of a busy surf break won't allow for such easy policing on a day to day basis.

You don't have to nab everyone, just a few to set an example..... Sticker, necklace, via boardrider clubs given a carrot for issuing licence...... Could issue yearly rashys, big bucks for the contract - millions sold - green, yellow, red depending on club test similar to surf lifesaving.... all backed by the cancer council of course.... "Don't want our kids getting skin cancer"..... "it's for your own good"...... "So you want children to get hurt and burnt?".... "For gods sake, wont someone think of the children!!!!!" :p ........

In one of those 'Nulla photos you can see the dredge in the background.
I think its called the Faucon or something like that.
It does the Broadwater dredging each year as well as the Nulla dredging.
From what I've been told, it can do the normal dredging and just change the dump zone to create the sand slug and that this can be done for little to no extra cost.
The key is its not permanent (so the pollies and bureaucrats can call it a trial or similar and not get bashed at the next election if it fucks something / someone up) and it doesn't cost much, if anything.
Permanent artifical structures and anything with significant cost will struggle to get support at local / state government. Or will just get them pointing at each other about whose responsibility it is.

I can see one problem with the sand slug on the Goldy would be trialing it south of Burleigh.

Reason being - the additional sand at Palmy/Curumbin/Tugun et al (and the following longshore drift) is likely to contribute to an excess of sand buildup at Currumbin and Burleigh, affecting the quality of the pointbreaks there as it has in the past.

Therefore the sand slug would really only work between North Burleigh and The Spit. But there's certainly potential for it to work reasonably well over short time spans.

A permenant offshore reef would be a better solution though.

They'd need a series of offshore structures to make any impact on ameliorating overcrowding, say at least five probably ten between Miami and the Spit, with maybe occasional sand replenishment from the dredge.

Yeah I reckon 10 structures would be ideal. It's around 17km from Burleigh to the Spit so that'd be around one structure every 1.5km or so. 

Is there any research or evidence that building surf structures reduces crowds?
When this gets talked about I always think of city roads. The more infrastructure that gets built, the more people are encouraged to drive and average speeds remain the same - or reduce. My gut feel is the same would happen in high population areas with high % of surfers. You build the waves - more people will surf and crowds stay the same.

If the issue is purely crowd management I would imagine some kind of licencing/behaviour management system would have to be cheaper than engineering solutions...not that I'm advocating for that. At least that could revenue raise for new infrastructure down the track. (as far as I know that is how the NSW fishing licence system works - fees go back into infrastructure and studies to improve the fishery)

Also - any findings on the Cronulla experiment. How long did it last? - what was the cost?

Dunno if the analogy is the same re: infrastructure (but I take your point on board). However there's no research on surfing reefs and crowds, because no-one's built a successful surfing reef yet.

But from my short stint on the Goldy, it was interesting to note that Straddie seemed to lure a reasonable percentage of surfers away from the southern end of the Goldy when conditions were suitable (as well as acting as a drawcard for surfers in and around Surfers Paradise, as well as day trippers from Brisbane etc).

However I never heard of anyone travelling from the Snapper or Currumbin to surf at Broady, or Miami, or Main Beach. Occasionally The Spit but only because it offers some protection from nor'easters. Straddie was a regular drawcard because of the quality of the wave.

As a result, Straddie was and still is very crowded. However - and obviously this is just a theory - surely if you could build a dozen "Straddie-esque" wave hubs between Burleigh and The Spit, there'd be even more reason for surfers to consider looking further afield from the southern points?

Of course, there are many scenarios where this won't work. For example the prevailing summer sou'easter wrecks conditions on the open beaches and focuses crowds to the southern points, regardless of swell/banks etc. 

And I also doubt that it'd be possible to replicate the wave quality of Straddie without building large rock groynes along the coast. But offshore reefs would probably improve surf quality quite a bit under many swell scenarios. As they do along the Sunny Coast and other places.

Exactly and then even under prevailing onshores , at least those under 15-20knots you would have surfable options which could potentially thin crowds

thermalben wrote:

But offshore reefs would probably improve surf quality quite a bit under many swell scenarios. As they do along the Sunny Coast and other places.

What are crowds like at the sunny coast? haven't been up there for years.
I fit into the 'other places' category - they sure make a difference at my front door - but crowds aren't an issue here.

Not sure on the general crowd status across the Sunny Coast beachies however the points are very busy when they're on.

thermalben wrote:

And I also doubt that it'd be possible to replicate the wave quality of Straddie without building large rock groynes along the coast. But offshore reefs would probably improve surf quality quite a bit under many swell scenarios. As they do along the Sunny Coast and other places.

Personally I don't reckon the groyne is the key to the quality of the banks over there. I assume its a combination of the refraction off the bar, and the amount of sand getting pumped onto the shoreline.

So, f*cking around with sand movements on more beaches is the answer for overcrowding, when f*cking around with sand movement caused the overcrowding in the first place......... Gotta love that logic.....

In another thread, I pointed out that the 'gatta used to have 5 separate point breaks.... It now has one.... Simple as that...... The "superbank"...... More like superwank..... Snapper to kirra, all one bit of sand....

Some photos;

Snapper to kirra today , thanks to humans continually fucking around with sand pumping, just one long bank..... No wonder it's crowded...

Before the sandpumping, rainbow bay rocks clearly visible.... Snapper, Rainbow, and Greenmount separated. All great waves on their day....

Another shot pre sandpumping;

Greenmount back in the "old days", breaking right up close to the rocks, a super fun spot that could handle the ese wind due to being tucked so close to the hill...

Superbank??? Superwank...... Stop pumping sand and turning the gatta into a sand dune......... The crowds will disperse when 1 break is returned to 5 , (snapper, rainbow, greenmount, Kirra, little kirra).... Or just keep fucking with nature.... Woteva......

Yocal, IMO it's a combination of many factors. My understanding is that the groyne certainly contributes as the prevailing northward current and wave action erodes sand away from the north side, assisting in the creation of a deeper near-shore bathy profile (happy to be corrected on this though). As such Straddie is predominantly a shorebreak whereas the beaches south from The Spit have a more typical channel/bar structure.

But yes - the Seaway bar certainly breaks the swell lines up into lovely A-frames.

Sheepdog, the superbank died years ago.

The remnants of little groyne are pocking out of the kirra sands now.

Sth Strad has 2 advantages as a surf spot; size and shape.

Size: 1. Depth of bathymetry due to -ve sand budget. More sand eroded than accumulated seen in the retreating dunes and eroding trees and as Ben said shorebreak, is due to the pumping/ sucking out at the spit, wall blocking nthward drift and dredging inside the seaway.
2. Double upping/ wedging/ crests converging due to shape of banks further out. But I've seen A frames and completely straight walls on separate days, when you can see the swell lines crossing/ breaking out on those far outside banks. So I'm not sure how much effect it has on breaking up swell...?

1 & 2 creates a +ve feedback loop where high energy does not allow sediment to accumulate.

Shape:
1. Banks always in a high state of flux due to high energy environment and -ve sand budget.
2. Same as 2 above.
3. Sand pump outlet provides new sand for the beach to build up and out, and to be eroded then deposited into new banks.
4. Groyne, like any other, water runs outwards along it and creates a channel.

thermalben wrote:

Yocal, IMO it's a combination of many factors. My understanding is that the groyne certainly contributes as the prevailing northward current and wave action erodes sand away from the north side, assisting in the creation of a deeper near-shore bathy profile (happy to be corrected on this though). As such Straddie is predominantly a shorebreak whereas the beaches south from The Spit have a more typical channel/bar structure.

I agree to a point but it doesn't fit the scenario for Wurtulla/Currimundi. They've got the offshore structure for refraction but nothing along the shoreline that would have effect similar to a groyne.

My thoughts are that the offshore structure itself plays a role in the shoaling effect on the shoreline, because with a cross-shore current there could be a Venturi-like effect with the offshore structure which creates the deepwater.

What about Moffs headland as a groyne yocal? There's no local groyne, but there are several impediments just to the sth. Parts of Bribie are eroding away too, so that could be pointing to a llimited sand supply.

mk1 wrote:

Sheepdog, the superbank died years ago.

The remnants of little groyne are pocking out of the kirra sands now.

Good....... Has Greenmount beach been scalloped out back to its former self yet?..... I doubt it......
Mk1, I used to have an old surfing world magazine...... Really really long time ago.... It had an article in it called "the gatta"...... The centrefold poster was a wonderful collage of photo's..... I wish I still had it....

Does anyone out there have that edition?

Sheepy did that gatta article also say "the gold beneath the plastic" ?
I may have that mag stored in a box somewhere.

Jeez... Dunno, udo..... But it had a classic aerial photo of the gatta in the late 1970s, almost looking straight down, like a guy hung out the side of a helicopter and took the photo, or a plane had a glass bottom.... Awesome photo from Dbah to kirra, showing all breaks.... The article explained the culture of the gatta in the late 70s early 80s.... The incredible surfing, mp, rabbit, pt, Drouyn, Deane, Bruce Lee... It went into pretty good detail on each break, also how once in a while Snapper would link all the way through to Greenmount........ Classic article , classic photos, awesome centrefold..... The qld humidity, bluetack and sticky tape ruined it years ago......

A few points:
Even the people involved in the media release don't think that a surfing tax is likely or a good idea. They are just trying to grab some attention and get the average apathetic surfer on the Gold Coast to think about management issues.

The sand slug experiment in Cronulla was great, and hats off to Andy Pitt et al. but it doesn't have a lot of application elsewhere.
The volume of sand was pretty small, it was part of a normal navigational dredging program (i.e. it was free), it wasn't all placed where it was supposed to be, and it wasn't monitored. There are some nice pics, but they could just be a coincidence, due to refraction off the Prince St seawall etc. If you are trying to convince a government to pony up for an engineering project you need some better data.

You also need a LOT more sand. 50-75k cubes is chickenfeed compared to how much sand gets moved around by a storm (250k+), and how much currently moves northward each year (600k+).

As luck has it, Gold Coast is currently applying for permits to shift millions of cubic metres of sand, and place it along the northern beaches (Burleigh to the Spit).
Unfortunately surfing barely rates a mention anywhere in the plans or modelling.

South Straddie works for a range of reasons. The groyne (it's actually a training wall, to be a pedant) does a number of things, and is important. Same as any headland, it improves the surface conditions on the lee side. It also increases the flow rate and forces the ebb tide delta further offshore. That makes the back banks that focus the swell. And it blocks the inner and outer bar system that is common along that stretch. The length of the walls is important, it has to extend across the normal wave zone. Little groynes won't do all that, and unfortunately the cost of big groynes goes up very quickly once you increase the depth at the end of the structure.
Combine all that with the pumping and you have waves hitting the ebb tide delta and refracting and focussing, passing through deep water so they don't lose much energy, then hitting the shallow bank inshore.

And Palm Beach artificial reef is the preferred option again. Quite a bit on the GCCC website, they are currently in final design stage.