Surfing Waves

This might sound a bit dumb; but hell most of my posts do anyway so no change there (I'm not drunk)

All this talk about swell, wind swell, ground swell, hurricanes, wind directions, wind speed, on shore, off shore.... does it REALLY matter?

Granted we all appreciate swell, but in my case as long as theres waves, I'm stoked. Probably because Im not a good enough surfer to worry about the onshore wind and pathetic whatever-direction swell, and because of this I dont whinge when the waves are perfect/glassy/whatever.

I'll just go out in 2ft of slop and enjoy it, i dunno if this even makes sense

I would agree with you if i lived beside the sea but i can only go up at the weekends and only if there is surf so i kind of have to check

most learners have that attitude, its great when you can see any lumps in the sea as bieng great surf, but trust me, youll get to the point where your moaning about the surf being crap one day.

I remember a couple months ago going to a secret spot near here, the surf was less than a foot and just windblown chop. I didnt bother going in and sat on the dunes. A bunch of guys with minimals came walking past and asked what it was like so i told them it was crap and that i hadnt bothrered going in and one of them replied with "well thats not the point, its getting in the sea that matters" with a 'im a more hardcore surfer than you' type attitdude. I just sat there smirking to myself while they paddled about for half an hour catching nothing and as they walked back out looking thouroughly frustrated.

what i'm trying to say is that we all love super clean surf, peeling waves etc.. but how often does that happen in Britain? and I long for the day I'm good enough to refuse to go in because the surf isnt good enough for me.

Surely if we all had that attitude in UK noone would ever surf anywhere!

some forecasts turn out wrong, so i think it's better to check the surf in person

I live less than two minutes walk from the sea.

I enjoy a grovel in small mushy waves. Windchop. Whatever. Hell, I enjoy just paddling around when it's flat glass.

But I get REALLY excited when I can clearly see waist high clean peelers making it to my local break.

Unfortunately that's usually the day some kind of illness strikes and I have to stay home from work It must be true because I get noticably ill a day or two beforehand.

-doug

I surf the great lakes, and here, forecast matters a lot.

The lakes are awsome in the fall, you would think it was definately an east coast fall swell, but it is a lake, pretty freaky.

I live in Michigan, so I have access to almost all the lakes, but Lake Michigan is where I stomp around the most at.

All of our waves are produced from localized wind, and low pressure, and sometimes a wave event might only last a couple hours.

For example, this past weekend, we had a strong south west wind, blowing at about 15-25 knots (not really that strong, but for this time of the year it isn't too shabby).

I called the buoy, it was reading 5-8 feet.

I know for a fact that the buoy is always wrong, it just is, it likes to lie a lot.

Normally, someone would hear that and drive up to the break that is closest to where the buoy is just to make sure they are going to catch some waves.

If you do that on a sw wind, you will get skunked and end up staring at 6 inch white caps that don't even look big enough to push the water beatles around.

But, if you know your area, and how the forecast works, you would know to drive about 60 miles north, and you will find those sweet 5-8 footers rolling in.

Now, on a northwest, you might have to drive another 50 miles north, or maybe 150-200 miles south to catch waves, and anything between them will be flat.

It is all wind angle, water and air temperature, air pressure, and wind speed. If you don't know them here, you will waste a lot of money driving around looking for waves, and wondering if the people at NOAA are using better drugs than you.

Another thing about surfing in cold climates is the weather forecast can tell you if it is really worth it, even if there are waves. -5 degrees F is not really good weather to surf in, but 15-20 degrees is awsome. Since the lake is warmer than the air, it has an almost tropical-artic feeling to it. You would have to have surfed the lakes in the winter to follow that one.

When I was surfing in Florida, the swell was easy to predict, because you almost always knew it was coming, but the wind direction decided if when low tide finally came, you would be staring at slow, glassy, perfection, or blown over chop.

for me it is important because its a 45 minute drive to the beach and i only have the weekend to surf. Many times i can only surf one day out of 2. For example saturday will be bigger this weekend and the surf can get really bad here. as in waves not even 1 foot and i only own a shortboard.

i hardly ever look at the forecasts because 1- i live next to the beach. and 2 - i like to be pleasantly surprised every now and then. But if i move off my local beach i will deffo look at the forecasts that way i can tell if the reef is working or not sensible really why waste a trip if its crap

Surf reports are hugely important, living in pembrokeshire with beaches in every direction its nice to know which beach to go on any particuler day to maximise on what is usually pretty shetty conditions, some beaches will be sloppy nothingness whilst others will be lovely clean peelers.

IdRatherBeSurfing wrote:what i'm trying to say is that we all love super clean surf, peeling waves etc.. but how often does that happen in Britain?

Thing is, it DOES happen in Britain, a lot.... and understanding the forecasts is the best way to know when and where its going to happen.

If its rubbish, and I havent been surfing for a while, I'll go and surf on any old junk - but by knowing the charts etc, you can often (usually, in fact) tweak your plans so that you end up on clean decent waves.

So, yes. Unless you happen to live next to the water and can get in whenever you like, I think being able to forecast is as critical as being able to paddle!

IRBS - I think it only matters if you are ready for it to matter, but you can get too into perfect conditions and kinda dissapear up your own ass!

I sometimes end up not going in or not checking a certain beach because the forcast says it will be too blown out or not big enough - and that sucks cos often the forcast is wrong and it would have been a good surf(well maybe not 'good' but deffo surfable). So I ask myself would I prefer to go for a crap surf or go for a run instead? That usually gets me suited up!

One factor which does come into play round here is that at a majority of spots it looks worse from the beach than it is. The opposite is the case (for me at least) at Saunton for instance, where it looks great but is such hard work on a short board.

Another point is that a learner surfer just needs as much time in the water as possible, not necessarily in good waves but just getting used to wearing the suit, sitting on the board, carrying the board down to the water, paddling, recovering from wipeouts, getting used to the motion of the sea/ocean, all that kind of stuff. And so perfect waves with offshore wind wouldn't really help, so I agree less emphasis on finding the perfect conditions would benefit alot of people - including me!

So all in all it doesn't matter for a beginner, and its nice to predict when and where to find perfect waves, but we need to be careful not to end up getting too picky.

Got to have somthign to moan about!!!

[quote="Broosta"]IRBS - I think it only matters if you are ready for it to matter, but you can get too into perfect conditions and kinda dissapear up your own ass!

Dude I so agree. I have felt this way before, like I got too caught up in how pissed I was because it wasn't what I wanted, and it put me in prick mode for the whole session, and I didn't have any fun.

I have a buddy that just sat around all day complaining about the weather, and just about totally quit surfing, he took up btchn instead.

I agree. The forecast does matter to me, but it really doesn't matter in the end. As long as we are alive, breathing, happy more often than not, its all good.

cj wrote:Dude I so agree. I have felt this way before, like I got too caught up in how pissed I was because it wasn't what I wanted, and it put me in prick mode for the whole session, and I didn't have any fun.

That is exactly what I was trying to say. Surely if you start off with a "this is shite surf and i hate it" mindset, youre gonna surf like a kook anyway.

And then comes a whole HOST of "it was the wind/swell/period/direction which was wrong which meant that I surfed like a kook today" excuses.

Me? Im just a kook, and I couldnt give a FK!

I know that weather conditions make a big difference between good surf days and bad ones, and I do find it important and fun actually to get a look at the forecast a few days in advance. Problem is, I just have a difficult time trying to sort out how to put the information together, i.e. how wind and swell direction, as well as speed, and seasonal tides, currents determine the surfing conditions themselves.
The extent of my knowledge is, offshore is good, onshore is bad. I'm aware that it is depend on the geography of the break, but are there any general understanding anyone can provide me if i were to figure out how the swell is on a particular day?

Here are the basics:

A 'wind swell' just means that the waves are made from wind blowing over the face of the water.

(the actual verb for this is 'fetch') Fetch is wind blowing over the face of water, transfering energy from the wind to the water, creating waves.

A 'ground swell' is a swell that is produced up on the beach and moves out to the ocean. Just kidding.

A ground swell is the same thing as a wind swell, because when it comes down to it, both of them mean wind blew against the water to produce waves.

The difference is a ground swell happened far away, in other words, the wind blew against the water far away from the beach, and the wave traveled a great distance, building up energy as it traveled, to get to the beach. There is a little bit more to it, the fact that a ground swell is also characterized by low pressure slamming down onto the face of the water, but again, it is pretty much the same thing.

Typically, a ground swell is a heavy, powerful wave, whereas a wind swell is usually a wave produced by more localized weather, therefore it never really gets a chance to become super powerful, and they tend to be blown out from the wind blowing 'onshore'.

An Onshore wind is the wind blowing from the ocean ONTO the shore. Sounds like a good thing, in some cases it is, but sometimes the wind is so strong that it blows the top of the wave over, and therefore, the waves become "Blown Out" I surf a lot of heavy blown out waves, because all of the surf on the great lakes is Onshore, and usually with heavy winds, but we have jetti's and piers that block the wind and shape the waves, so on a heavy onshore wind, we get clean peeling waves. So in a way, yea it does depend on where you are at in the world and what you are trying to surf on, but mostly in the ocean, an onshore means that the wind is going to blow from behind the waves (from the ocean) and blow the top of them over.

An offshore is just the opposite, it is the wind blowing From the shore Onto the ocean. Here on the great lakes that means there is not going to be any waves, but in the ocean (during a ground swell) it means that those big heavy ground swells are going to be hit right in the face by wind, a light offshore will slow the wave down a little bit, and it will clean it up so it looks like a glassy swell, and it will prevent the waves from being blown out.

As far as Wind Speed goes, well the stronger the wind, the bigger the waves, providing that water temperature and pressure system are working together (Low Pressure against Warm Water = Good Waves)

As far as wind direction or swell direction, basically they are the same thing, except one is talking about the direction the wind is COMING from and the other is talking about the direction the swell is COMING from.

A NW wind is coming from the Northwest and blowing towards the Southeast. A N/NW wind is blowing from the north / north west, all this extra north means is that it is a lot more north than it is west.

Which is where wind angle comes into play.

Wind angle tells you what degree the wind is blowing at. Think of a compass, it is just a circle, at the top is North (which is 360 degrees OR zero degrees - truely it is called 360 degrees)

Once you move towards the East you are now at 90 degrees (everything from 360 (or zero) to 90 degrees is just between them, so if the wind is blowing at 15 degrees, it is blowing N/NE (out of the North East, but More North than east)

AND just to finish off, 180 degrees is dead south, and 270 degrees is dead west).

Usually you only use the ANGLE when you are talking about wind, it is not common to use the angle when talking about ground swells, with ground swells you just say it is a N/NW or a SW or whatever. I have only heard the ground swell referred to in degrees for precise forecasting.

So, if you are standing on the shore, in California, facing dead west (and the shore is perfectly alligned North and South)

And there is a ground swell coming from the W/NW (North West, but more west than North) and there is a 5-8 Knot Offshore, you are going to have a hell of a good time.

Tides, Basically during high tide, the tide is way up on shore so the water is a little deeper, therefore it is more unlikely that the waves will break against sandbar, during a low tide the water goes back out, so the waves break hard against the sandbar, and when you get there at High Tide and it is Moving toward Low tide, you get to paddle up down the shoreline chasing the break.

In Michigan, things are a little different, like I said all we have is onshore, super windy days but we use cement foundation piers and jetti's to block the wind, and shape waves. (just figured I would include a little about the lakes so everyone doesn't think I am crazy for talking about 40 knot winds being awsome for suring in)

AND I GET THE AWARD FOR THE LONGEST POST... Hope this helps a little.

surfishlife wrote:I Problem is, I just have a difficult time trying to sort out how to put the information together, i.e. how wind and swell direction, as well as speed, and seasonal tides, currents determine the surfing conditions themselves.

Thats something you learn as you go along and depends largely on the break, i.e. some breaks light up with the right swell direction but might be crap on another, while a different break works better on different directions, get to know your local break - make a mental note of how good it was and what the swell was doing and after a while youll know where to go on a given swell/wind direction.

surfishlife wrote:offshore is good, onshore is bad.

not always the case, some breaks will work well with a light onshore (especially for airs), and a strong offshore wind can be a nightmare to surf in, all that wind blowing up the face and under you board. Also an strong offshore wind can ruin a good swell before it even arrives at the break. Again its about getting to know your local breaks, where i live theres tons of different breaks in different directions so no matter what the wind is doing you can usually find somewhere thats sheltered if you know where to look.

cj wrote:Tides, Basically during high tide, the tide is way up on shore so the water is a little deeper, therefore it is more unlikely that the waves will break against sandbar, during a low tide the water goes back out, so the waves break hard against the sandbar, and when you get there at High Tide and it is Moving toward Low tide, you get to paddle up down the shoreline chasing the break.

Well that depends entirely on the break, most of the reefs here only work at low tide because thats the only time theyre shallow enough to break properly (we have a pretty massive tidal range here), there are other breaks which only work well at high tide, sandbars which only break with any power at low tide, and one of my favorate spots here only comes on properly at a certain stage of tide (usually about an hour after mid-tide) and works up until the tide start to slow down at high tide.
Theres also a point break here which is only surfable at certain tide times cos the current gets so strong at other times that its unsafe to surf there (current stronger than its possible to paddle)

thanks cj- it was just what i wanted to know. can i buy you a beer?