Evan Watterson is the Chief Engineer and Director of Bluecoast, the company contracted to design the recently opened Albany Artificial Reef.

Having spent ten years studying "that little patch of seafloor" Evan is well-placed to comment on the technical difficulties they had to overcome at Albany, as well as the factors that made it an ideal place to build an artificial reef.

Swellnet: The reef has been planned for many years - the history stretches back to the nineties - but when did Bluecoast become involved?
Evan Watterson: I think it was around 2019 when we were first contracted to work on it. Yet prior to forming Bluecoast we were at another employer, Haskoning, and we'd been involved with the feasibility study in 2015. So that was our first involvement in the project. That was myself and James Lewis and Richard Mocke. 

It then went on pause for a while, and in 2019, I think we kicked off the contract for the detailed design, which was basically the old design.

So there was still quite a few years between your last involvement, back in 2019, and the final push. Did the idea lose momentum?
Perhaps a little, though not in the eyes of the proponents. We finished the detailed design and had it costed, then the drawing and everything was ready to be tendered, but they had to seek funding. 

They got some funding in 2017, but that funding was from the state. So that was $5.5 million and about 500K of that was to do the detailed design. And they had to finish that, firm up costings and design everything before they could seek the remainder of the funding.

It’s a long convoluted process.
Yes

Artist's impression of Albany Artificial Reef

Middleton Beach has a peculiar wave climate. The prevailing south-west swell has to turn 90 degrees and then travel more than five kilometres up King George Sound. As a designer of reefs did that location appeal to you, or did you find it particularly challenging?
It’s good and bad. Good, because deep within the bay all the swell lines are really lined up to the bottom contour, so the swell is really uni-directional there. That was good, all the waves coming from one direction.

However, being in a more sheltered location had its challenges, because they wanted reliable, regularly breaking, surf. Obviously the reef is not making waves, the reef's got to work with what nature provides. 

So the challenge was trying to amplify the wave climate as much as we could to try and drive that outcome - to make it a regular surfing break.

So yeah, the location has its goods and bads with the wave climate. The other thing is the wave climate's very long period down there. A twelve-second swell is pretty short for there, and they even get seventeen-second swells as well. 

It makes for powerful waves, but due to the wavelength of those longer period waves, the structure has to be bigger. So those longer waves feel the bottom, the structure has to be relatively bigger.

So the wave has to operate in small two-foot waves up to anything the ocean can throw at it. Does the reef have an optimum operational size?
The brief was really to make a regular breaking wave, but in terms of shape it's beginner-to-intermediate level. And also following the brief, it’s designed to amplify the wave climate. So that was the main focus. 

However, because of that we knew that once the swell gets bigger, it becomes more intermediate-to-expert shape.

A medium-sized day at the reef (ABC News)

Was the Council OK that you were going to have a steeply breaking wave?
Yeah. I mean, that wasn't the original brief but if you're going to design it to amplify the small swell then you've got to compromise somewhere. Also, that appealed to a wider group of the community stakeholders because there were advanced surfers who wanted to get use out of it as well.

OK, so a wider group of people can enjoy it?
Yes, and there’s another element to that too. We were involved in the Palm Beach Reef, we designed that, and we’d seen what happened to the inshore waves during small high tide conditions. We learnt from that.

Prior to the reef [at Albany] small swell would usually come in and closeout without much shape.

Yet now, when it's smaller and high tide, then there's a really good beach break on the inside now. A lot of the surfers we’ve spoken are really enjoying that new inside break.

So in addition to the brief, the reef is working as an offshore bombora to refract small swell..?
Yeah, it forms really nicely shaped waves that break on the beach.

(Albany Boardriders)

On that score, I remember the original plan was to have it a fair way offshore. But if I look at it now, it doesn't seem to be quite so far. Was there a change somewhere along the line where it was shifted a little bit closer to shore?
I don't know what you mean by original, but yeah, we pretty much progressively shifted it inshore over the detailed design phase. 

The reason why we have to make them further offshore is to avoid creating a strong current. You would've seen that at any big reef break, like say Cloudbreak when you're on the inside, you're getting pumped down the line.

It's the same thing on this, except it's a little bit more like a stream coming off where the breaking wave is. So that current then can cause erosion along the shoreline. So you've got to move it a bit offshore so it doesn't cause erosion. But that distance, it's a little bit like finding that balance.

When you move it inshore, it becomes shallower and you save volume. So it's more economical to have it inshore and easier to access. Again, it's finding that balance. 

In the end, we're always trying to maximise the outcome so we ended up shifting it inshore a few times.

OK. So let's talk about the shape then, because it seems to have caught a lot of people by surprise. It would seem to me that there is some aspect of wave-priming, you might call it, as the swell line stands up and approaches the reef. 
Well, the location is the starting point. There’s a very mild shoal further offshore in the King George Sound. It's not that far offshore but it’s there, and it preconditions the approaching swell lines a little bit. 

We'd done a heap of wave modelling and knew that shoal was there, so that was why it’s at that exact location. So the wave already has a bit of preconditioning, a little bit more amplitude there.

In terms of the shape of the reef itself, it's an evolution from the Palm Beach to reef, but there's a fair bit more going on with Palm Beach that we learned.

Is there anything you can explain at least in layman's terms?
Well, there is a focus here. There's a wave-focusing cone on the front of it, but it's a bit smaller than Palm Beach, it's a bit steeper, it's a bit more concave. That was just a straight slope on Palm Beach, whereas we have a concave slope on this one, so it's a bit more abrupt. Because we felt that you want the wave-focusing area, but you're actually losing a lot of volume out there if you make that area too big. So we trimmed and tucked and refined all that there. 

Also, it's a left-hander, right? On the left-hand side, under the breaking wave, there's a big slope and a big area out there. It's designed to refract the waves in and turn the waves towards where it's breaking. That brings in more energy and keeps it walling up down the line. It also keeps the wave height up as you go down the line.

And then unlike Palm Beach where the crest is curved, it actually slopes. The very inside bit is flat, but it slopes off. So we curved the crest and have this special crest design. It just makes the pocket of the wave.

So it appears that there are improvements from project to project, meaning the science is getting sharper. Is that true?
Definitely. 100%. I think we have learned a lot through those two projects. But obviously for a different site, it would have different features and we'd have to go back to the drawing board a bit. But yeah, the science is improving. We've also had a few new technologies come out that have helped.

Exposed rocks during a large swell and low tide on the 25th May, 2025 (Albany Boardriders)

Is it possible that if future funding was sourced at Albany, they could build the right or is that just not possible now?
Yes, you could do that. I don't know if they'll ever do that; if they’d ever get that money. But yeah, a right could be built off it.

Tell me about your own personal feelings seeing this reef that you've worked on for so long finally being surfed.
Seeing other people with a smile on their face as they enjoy surfing the waves out there was probably the highlight for me. And we had two surfs during the opening day: before the ceremony and then afterwards.

I would’ve surfed it all day if I could’ve. It was pumping really.

But just that joy and seeing how much the community really use it, appreciate, and how it's bringing them all together was pretty special. Catching a few waves myself was a treat. I got some really good waves, though I'm probably a little bit biased, 

I was obviously nervous that it was going to work out. You do as much work as you possibly can. The team leaves no stone unturned, but there's no certainty that it's going to be what you expected or what you saw in the flume. All the tools that we use for this design, they've all got their limitations. 

So it was awesome to surf it and know that it's a good wave. 

Funding will always be hard to source, but is there a chance that we're going to see more of these around Australia?
Yeah, possibly. Both Albany and Palm Beach are a model for what’s possible. But I think, and you see this with Albany, it started with a community desire, a dream. The community just kept driving it.

So if a community really wants it and they get support from their local politicians, federal too, if they can get all of those things to align, then we may start seeing more. I'd want one at my local beach.

Palm Beach works as both coastal protection and a surfing reef while Albany is a proof of concept for a standalone reef that delivers. It'll be interesting to see if communities take the initiative and start putting ideas forward.
Some sites just wouldn't work or could be too difficult, but there are plenty of sites where artificial reefs would work. Funding issues aside, there are lots of possibilities there.

OK Evan, congratulations to yourself and to your colleagues as well. I hope to see more of your work in the future, wherever it may be.