The late 1960s and 1970s heralded the start of largescale offshore wave buoy deployments. For example, the JONSWAP experiment to measure spectral wave growth took place in the late 1960s and the New South Wales wave buoy network was installed in 1974 to monitor hazardous wave conditions. The data from these early field deployments are still relevant today given the significant expense in deploying buoys in remote conditions when compared to competing platforms (e.g. satellites) and inexpensive numerical modelling which can provide results at regional and global scales.

A dataset of multiple simultaneous wave buoy observations collected in the 1970s, primarily for the use of the local Port Authority, has recently been released, and is available for research purposes. The measurements were conducted in Port Philip Bay (PPB), situated in the Australian state of Victoria. PPB is a semi-enclosed embayment with a continuous deepwater (> 10m) fetch of around 40-50km, where the extreme wind climate is primarily driven by eastward moving frontal systems.

Wind and bulk spectral wave data were collected every 4 hours (in 10min bursts) by non-directional Datawell Waverider buoys for a 2.5 year period between Jul 1974 to March 1977. At any one time, up to three buoys were deployed. The campaign started with one buoy located at the northern part of the bay (Altona) and one at the southern part (Rosebud) for a period of one year. This was followed by three east bay locations (Rosebud, St Kilda and Aspendale) over spring of 1975. The final stage of the deployment compared a west bay buoy (St Leonards) to two east bay location (a combination of either Mount Martha, Mornington, Aspendale and/or Frankston). This talk will share the wave conditions over the 2.5 year deployment period and discuss possible future analysis and opportunities for this dataset.