Bunbury Airwave

The town of Bunbury is working to install an “Airwave” artificial surfing reef on their back beach. Unfortunately, during installation, unexpectedly strong currents caused a tear in one of the seams.

The Airwave is an innovative approach to improving surf conditions based on a large, inflatable bladder that sits on the ocean floor.

According to Troy Bottegal, the founder and inventor of Airwave, the artificial surfing reef will help improve the shape of swells between 2′ and 8′ high on the face of the wave, resulting in longer, better, more frequent rides. The reef will produce lefts and rights that can be ridden for 40 meters or about 26 seconds. Depending on conditions, it will produce a variety waves ranging from barrels to open-face walls. Mr. Bottegal hopes to it will produce waves similar to Thunderbomb in Nicaragua.

The Airwave is a dome-shaped bladder made out of rubber that is 5mm thick. Mr. Bottegal describes the rubber as an environmentally inert compound. The bladder is anchored to the seabed by partially filling it with sand. The rest of the bladder is filled with water and air. The bladder is 12m (40 feet) in diameter on the sea floor and rises about 2m (6.5 feet) off the sea floor at its highest point. It’s designed to be installed 30-45 meters off the beach and, at low tide, the shallow point is about 1m under the surface of the water.

In addition to improving the shape of waves, Mr. Bottegal claims that the artificial reef will help reduce erosion, because “you’re making the wave break further out… and the beach starts to sort of grow out towards the unit,” he said.

The Airwave artificial surf reef costs roughly US$400,000, including installation.

Construction teams installed the reef in December 2019, but unexpected undertow currents were more than one of the seams could bear.