I've been trying to figure that one out. What I can't do, is generate a huge wave curl. For two reasons. One, I've not been able to create that shape in functions, without untidy hard edges, (although I'm sure you can soften the lateral displacement at it's edges somehow, and that is my next little project, coming up with a blend function), which is still animateable (this is probably more important than creating a one off still, it means the the nodes will work in any situation you throw at it regardless of direction. And well, it moves). The second more debilitating restriction, is that the water shader is only one sided. It doesn't handle light passing through two sides at all well.
With this is in mind, I think it's more than possible to create a decent shorline that interacts with a sloping coast. I'd just concentrate on making a decent phase transition between a pointed wave peak, building to animated frontal noise, that decreases it's frequency and amplitude as it rolls up the shore.