Oct 13 2008
R.I.P. Pratte’s Reef
After eight years of…well, pretty much nothing…Pratte’s Reef, El Segundo’s much-discussed artificial surf break, was finally dismantled last Thursday. Originally constructed in 2000 as a consolation for Chevron’s destruction of another nearby surf spot, Pratte’s Reef, a v-shaped formation of sandbags set 30 yards offshore, has proved to be nothing but an expensive failure. While the promise of consistent, well-shaped surf never came to fruition at Pratte’s Reef, we can nonetheless walk away from this costly experiment with several important insights:
1. Waves and the underwater landscapes that create them are incredible natural phenomena, and even with all of our technology and computer imaging and scientific equations, we may never be able to engineer surf breaks that can compete with those already in existence.
2. Since we cannot accurately replicate and reproduce the surf spots that we so fondly cherish, it is important that we protect them while they can still be saved.
3. El Segundo is a scummy area and should probably be nuked off the face of the planet anyway. If El Porto and/or the Lakers’ practice facility can be saved in this process, that would be preferable.
To learn more about Pratte’s Reef and the process of building artificial surf breaks, check out this report from the Surfrider Foundation: Pratte’s Reef Positioning Paper
