Cape St. Francis is one of those postcard gems you will find on South Africa’s stunningly eastern coast.

But, for surfers, the region hosts a spot that is absolutely legendary: Bruce’s Beauties.

The right-hander that once broke there was forever encapsulated into surf culture by Bruce Brown’s 1966 film, “The Endless Summer,” when Mike Hynson and Robert August reach the top of a dune and contemplate heaven.

For decades, the wave has been fickle. Lately, in the first two decades of the 21st century, it has been quieter and less reliable.

However, an ambitious coastal project named the Long Term Coastal Protection Scheme could change that.

The plan is simple in idea and complex in execution.

Engineers will build rock groins that stick out into the sea and then pump or truck sand back onto the beaches.

The groins are meant to stop sand from being carried away by longshore drift. The nourishment will widen the beach and rebuild the spit that protects the canals and shoreline.

Local owners and the project team describe it as a two-part solution: hard rock structures plus ongoing sand replenishment.

There will be six groins in total as part of the groin field.

Some of the groins will be about 570 feet (173.5 meters) long, and the first works have already started, with the Laura Road groin being built.

The groins are built from large core rock, and heavier armor rock is placed on top.

The Scale and the Impact on Waves

The long-term design calls for about one million cubic metres of sand to be placed along roughly 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) of beach.

That rebuild is expected to widen the beach by roughly 130 feet (40 meters) in places. After the initial build, the plan calls for ongoing maintenance.

Project documents and local reporting estimate annual top-ups of somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 cubic meters to keep the profile stable.

Sand will mostly come from the Kromme River system and the Sand River delta. The project uses long dredge lines and pumps to move material where needed.

The funding mix includes a special levy, donations, and borrowed money.

The local property association had raised around R54 million in cash to start construction and expects to raise roughly R8 million per year from a special rating area levy to repay loans and support ongoing work.

The project was granted environmental authorization in 2022 and has been through further modeling and approvals since then.

Surfers Are On-Hold

As any surfer will know, a beach’s width and the shape of its sandbanks are the skeleton of a surf break.

Where sand piles up, banks form. Where banks sit near outcrops or headlands, swell can be focused into peeling point breaks.

Over many decades, longshore drift, river mouth changes, and dune stabilization have robbed St. Francis Bay of a lot of sand.

That has exposed rock and flattened the banks that once helped Bruce’s Beauties show up more often, just like we saw in “The Endless Summer.”

Fixing the sand dynamics could let the point re-express itself more reliably.

Local surfers and engineers have talked together while the designs evolved, and that, per se, is something that is quite rare these days.

The modeling work that supported the approvals included scenarios aimed at showing how the groins and nourishment would alter currents and sand transport across the bay.

That modeling, plus careful placement of the groins, is meant to encourage sand to settle where it helps form surfable banks south of the Kromme mouth and along the Cape St. Francis point.

Back to the Future Dreaming at Bruce’s Beauties

Surfers are now allowed to dream.

The goal is a chest-high, fast, lined-up right-hander that forms more often, with longer walls and cleaner takeoff zones.

The idea is not to manufacture a perfect wave every day, though.

It is to restore enough sand and bank shape that, when the right swell, tide, and wind line up, Bruce’s Beauties will produce those classic zippering sections again.

Vocal sections of the surf community pushed to ensure the modeling included likely effects on the Cape St. Francis headland so that the restoration helps rather than harms the point.

Early footage and local reports have already shown glimpses of bigger, more formed wedges as initial sand moves and the first groin takes shape.

Surfers are excited but cautious.

Wave changes after coastal engineering tend to be patchy and seasonal. Some sessions could get dramatically better. Others might see the same old variability.

What Could Go Wrong?

No coastal project is risk-free. We’ve surf breaks come and go, taken down overnight, and destroyed by humans, or suddenly resurrected.

Groins trap sand on their up-drift side and can starve beaches down-drift unless the system is balanced with nourishment.

Everything near the shore is extremely sensitive, and that is one reason the plan includes ongoing pumping and maintenance, not just built once and forgotten.

Environmental groups and some residents have raised concerns about impacts to estuary ecology, nearshore habitats, and access during construction.

The team has presented monitoring and mitigation measures, and the project has an environmental management plan to guide construction and follow up.

Still, again, real coastlines are dynamic and surprises can appear.

For surfers, the worry is twofold.

First, the new sand banks might not line up with the rock point in a way that recreates the good old memories.

Second, short-term construction and initial dredging could temporarily change currents and swell exposure.

As we’ve seen above, surfers and engineers are trying to limit those effects with targeted modeling, phased construction, and careful placement of sand and groins.

The phased work plan indicates that the most urgent parts – the spit and Main Beach – are treated first, and further groins and nourishment happen as money allows.

Many see the whole blueprint as the best chance in decades to put sand back and give Bruce’s Beauties a fighting chance to return to something closer to its famous form.

If everything goes well, in the months and years ahead, expect to see beaches grow wider in places, changes in sandbar location, and a shifting pattern of waves.

Local surf photographers and film crews are already documenting the early sessions.

Those images will be the first hints of whether the engineered sand and stone are nudging the bay back toward its old surf geometry.

The ultimate tests will be to witness how the point behaves on mid-period southerly swells, and whether the maintenance volumes (the 25k-50k cubic meters a year range) keep banks in shape.

Those will be the practical signals that the engineering is doing the job surfers hope for.

In the future, Bruce’s Beauties could become an example that could be exported to other iconic surf locations around the world that were once declared dead.

Can you imagine bringing Dana Point’s Killer Dana back to its former glory?

Words by Luís MP | Founder of SurferToday.com