Troy Bottegal is a surfer, a dreamer, and an inventor. Faced with closing waves, overcrowding of the spots, and the frustrations that this can cause... He had an idea! Troy imagined an inflatable artificial reef that would transform a flat beach into a perfect left pic-right.
The Airwave is, therefore, a kind of bubble, or rather a two-meter-high dome, with a diameter of twelve meters at the base. The structure is designed to imitate a reef that will make them swell and dig. As the Airwave could settle in shallow water (up to 30m from the edge), the concave wall would retain its shape by breaking towards the beach.
The tests at 1/20 scale show that a peak is created above the inflatable reef, but Bottegal insists: only by installing a full-size model can we really measure its effects.
The purpose of the project
This is good news, after 10 years spent on the project, Troy has found a site where to install the first reef. Bunbury, the third largest city in Western Australia, has approved its installation on Back Beach, which generally offers only an uninteresting close-out.
There is still a major problem, the city will not pay the bill and the project must still succeed in its participatory financing to materialize in 2019. Unfortunately, after a first failure on Kickstarter in 2014, this new project has so far only raised 3 000€ out of the 155 000€ requested...
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