Check out the video footage and photos of the first waves breaking on the right hander on the 4th October 2006….
http://www.mountreef.co.nz/
After a gruelling two week construction period installing the second half of the Mount Reef, the partially completed reef started to show its capabilities on Wednesday 4th October. A small 1.5 metre north-easterly swell generated awesome waves on the reef throughout the day producing fast hollow right hand barrels and up to 50 metre rides on both left and right hand breaks.Approximately 50 surfers sampled the new break through out the day on Wednesday. Mike Smith, Director of RPM, was first in the water at 6 am and scored the reef to himself for half an hour. ‘I took off on my second wave just to the right of the peak and dropped down the steep wall into hollow over head barrel. I made it right along the length of the bag before it spat me out at the end. I was definitely pleased with how it was working. Pretty awesome for the Mount!’ A group of young surfers were especially exuberant, hooting at one another to take off on ever more challenging waves. The group couldnt get enough of the rides that the reef delivered and surfed the reef for over 8 hours!
Despite the reef still not being completely finished, waves were breaking as ASR Ltd, the reef designers, had predicted with a steep critical take off leading into and a fast, tubing wall on the set waves. Dr Kerry Black of ASR Ltd said ‘It’s fantastic to see it starting to work just like our computer and laboratory models predicted. We’re very pleased that all the design work is starting to be proven on the reef. Once it’s completed according to our specifications we’ll see hollow barrels breaking left and right with consistent 70 metres rides in both directions.’
Dr Black sent a group of his staff from ASR on a field trip to the Mount to ‘gather some scientific data’. We left Raglan at 5 am to ‘study the reef’ at the Mount said Dr Jose Borrero who works for ASR Ltd designing reefs for other projects around the world. When we first paddled out, I was really impressed. The drop was steep and fast, but make able and the wave had the speed and power of a proper reef break you would find in Indonesia, just not as long. Dr. Chris Blenkinsopp agreed, The wave isnt for beginners, it’s a fast steep take off and quite shallow over the reef at low tide. We’re looking forward to learning even more from studying the way this reef works and incorporating it into our future designs.
‘Weve worked so hard over the last year to get it built commented Dave Neilson, Executive Officer of the Mount Reef Trust who has been managing the construction of the reef. ‘We got as much done in the last 10 days as we did in the previous 10 months because the weather was perfect for construction. We’ve still got three days work to finish the right hander and another four to complete the left once the sand has cleared from top of it. Mother nature needs to oblige with a big swell to clear the sand followed by a flat period to finish it off – hopefully not too big an ask!’
More pictures and movies of the reef in action will soon be available on the mount reef website http://www.mountreef.co.nz/ – check out the videos and photo gallery pages.