Lyall Bay in Wellington has a long history of surfing and has been called 'the origin of modern surfing in New Zealand'

Lyall Bay is less than 15 min from Wellington's CBD, is extensively utilised as a recreation area and is a focus for open water sports in the Wellington region. The Bay has excellent potential as a surfing beach because the wind and swell conditions are conductive to surfing. But the waves 'close-out' over most of the Bay, and the best break called "The Corner" needs a large swell and is very susceptible to over-crowding. Other surfing breaks on the Wellington south coast offer relatively short rides and so cannot support large numbers of surfers.

There is a shortage of high-quality waves in the Wellington area. Even so, on any given day there will be a large number of people in the water trying to get the best out of the waves on a large variety of surf craft (e.g. surf-boards, body-boards, kayaks, and wave-skis), which demonstrates the popularity of surfing in the region. The most vital ingredient, seabed formations (reefs, bars, etc.) that produce surfable waves, are scarce in the Wellington area. The Lyall Bay Reef Charitable Trust recognised the potential to us artificial surfing reef technology at Lyall Bay to 'improve the surfing conditions in the Wellington City Area.

Preliminary cost estimates for the construction of a surfing reef that will provide 200 m of ridable wave face (100 m right and 100 m left) at the recommended site in Lyall Bay is;

15,000m3 design volume
Marine sources $853,125
Land sources $1,181,250