Learn
How surf actually works
Seven short pieces on the parts of a forecast that mislead people.
Every figure here is solved, not drawn: the same model that runs the forecast, on real measured seafloor, with its inputs printed beside it.
1 · Start here
What a wave is doing, and why it falls over where it does.
2 · The four levers
Swell, seafloor, tide and wind — what each one actually controls.
- What makes a wave powerful, and what makes it mushySame height on the forecast, and one of them is a wall while the other is soup.8 min
- How the tide moves the breakSame swell, same bank, two tides, and a different wave.5 min
- How tides actually workThere are two high tides today and they are not the same height. That difference is your session.6 min
- Why two breaks a mile apart get different wavesOne swell arrives. The ground underneath decides what you get.5 min
3 · The water itself
Currents: what moves you down the beach, and what pulls you out.
Now read your own break. 169 breaks, each solved on its own seafloor.
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