What Happened To Surfline?

[GromsDad]

There was a time when Surfline was THE hub of on-line surf media. Their coverage of everything from ASP contests, travel, photo features, equipment, local interest surf features to swell events across the globe was second to none. Now its more or less just one of dozens of web cam aggregator websites with very little other worthwhile content. I realize its founder passed on tragically way too young but after that, what happened? I really do miss the old Surfline.

 

[r32]

There was a time when Surfline was THE hub of on-line surf media. Their coverage of everything from ASP contests, travel, photo features, equipment, local interest surf features to swell events across the globe was second to none. Now its more or less just one of dozens of web cam aggregator websites with very little other worthwhile content. I realize its founder passed on tragically way too young but after that, what happened? I really do miss the old Surfline.

Surfing culture and business peaked 20+ years ago. It's been downhill ever since for almost all companies, especially web-based. Not enough subscribers means they've had to cut their staff significantly to remain profitable. Same as every other surf company that is somehow still alive.

Also, other prediction sites are just as good and offer the information for free. That's tough to compete against.

 

[oeste858]

nobody thinks they should have to pay for any content online. Surfers are cheap bastards.

 

[Bob Dobbalina]

Queue up the link to hiring the Disney kook from Chicago. A surfy guy is at the helm now, but the content is dead and they seem to accept that. They cornered the cam market.

Passion project turned business.

This is optimization.

 

[CutnSnip]

they know the only reason people use the site is the cams. why put money towards anything else even if we all prefer they did?

 

[cjs2002]

they turned off comments. that was the end

 

[Sharkbiscuit]

I use it mostly for the long range forecasts and the detailed breakdown of individual swells. Windy barely goes out a week with any detail and their detail blows compared to surfline.

This is doubly true for Mexico. Basically every long period swell will be discounted and they'll just rate some bullshit windswell. There'll be a tropical wave in two days and some bullshit SE windswell coming from South America.

Windy'll say 4@10 and 3@5

Meanwhile there's a 1.5@18 and a 2@16 and it's triple overhead bombs of death.

 

[sdsrfr]

I noticed windy is linking in spot webcams, let’s you flip through various forecast products, and is free.

imo, Surfline - Done.

 

[CutnSnip]

I noticed windy is linking in spot webcams, let’s you flip through various forecast products, and is free.

imo, Surfline - Done.

how do you see the cams on windy?

 

[sdsrfr]

Windy'll say 4@10 and 3@5

Meanwhile there's a 1.5@18 and a 2@16 and it's triple overhead bombs of death.

for Torrey pines Buoy:

Surfline says


Windy says




buoy says:


All forecasts are flawed. Trust the buoy.

 

[sdsrfr]

how do you see the cams on windy?

it’s one of the displays for the map, I found it in the forecast section as well if you happen to pick a spot near one.

 

[PRCD]

nobody thinks they should have to pay for any content online. Surfers are cheap bastards.

We pay for a whole network of modeling and sensing through our taxes. Surfline has merely monetized a lot of it with a common web site and some tweaks.

 

[sussle]

i pay $10 per year for Surf Captain's full forecast. Reasonably accurate, the proprietor is particularly dialed into East Coast surf, he's got the chops to keep improving the product as needed.. no complaints.

 

[keenfish]

I can't even navigate the surfline site the way they have it set up now.

 

[Sharkbiscuit]

for Torrey pines Buoy:

Surfline says

View attachment 163086
Windy says
View attachment 163082
View attachment 163087


buoy says:
View attachment 163084

All forecasts are flawed. Trust the buoy.

You posted a picture with two swells in Windy. My example specifically had four different swells. Maybe Windy is useful for the Southern California Bight? Windy routinely selects windswells from offshores as one of the two swells it shows off North Florida. Windy routinely selects bullshit windswells instead of SoHemi for Mainland Mex. And there's no buoys for Mexico and real time reports don't help me know what board(s) I'll want in 7-10-12 days, and neither does some forecast that only breaks out two swells - often the two wrong swells.

I don't think I've ever paid attention to surfline's real time buoy readings.

Also if it's daytime, the cams are real-time wind status. The NDBC station is almost an hour delayed, which might as well be a month when you're talking localized thunderstorm offshores.

The 41112 and 41117 buoys will routinely act like two windswells are one swell, as well as acting like one windswell is one swell. The two will always be better. Not all 3@8 are created equal in Florida.

Windy's closest cam is 40 miles away.

 

[ElOgro]

No cams. Good here today. Running makeable beachbreak in front of the house. Some spitters.

 

[surf-shot.com]

this site is free:

WaveCast - SoCal

 

[sdsrfr]

You posted a picture with two swells in Windy. My example specifically had four different swells. Maybe Windy is useful for the Southern California Bight? Windy routinely selects windswells from offshores as one of the two swells it shows off North Florida. Windy routinely selects bullshit windswells instead of SoHemi for Mainland Mex. And there's no buoys for Mexico and real time reports don't help me know what board(s) I'll want in 7-10-12 days, and neither does some forecast that only breaks out two swells - often the two wrong swells.

I don't think I've ever paid attention to surfline's real time buoy readings.

Also if it's daytime, the cams are real-time wind status. The NDBC station is almost an hour delayed, which might as well be a month when you're talking localized thunderstorm offshores.

The 41112 and 41117 buoys will routinely act like two windswells are one swell, as well as acting like one windswell is one swell. The two will always be better. Not all 3@8 are created equal in Florida.

Windy's closest cam is 40 miles away.

To be honest, it really just depends what the sites are running and showing, where you are, and how complex the region is. SOCAL bight has a reasonable number of public data wave moorings that feed into the wave models. That is probably why ours is better.

i think the swell listings in windy come from ECMWF forecast but it also seems reminiscent of wave watch 3 products which do primary, secondary and wind as well.

i don’t mean to imply which product is more correct, if anything I think both are often wrong, and a big issue in the forecasts is swell propagation, swell swell interaction, and timing of arrival.

 

[trifish]

Lazy Surfer app was a cool idea I thought. You surf than log your session after and rate the sess. It stores the nearby buoy info/conditions so the more you surf/log that specific spot the better it is at predicting how you would rate the upcoming conditions. It allows you to comment, so you can comment wave size or thoughts about the board you brought that sess. Used it for a while but than got too Lazy for the Lazy app lol

 

[pastel]

if surfline goes under, maybe the cameras will be gone??