What is needed for a beachbreak to be good?

[Northern_Shores]

What makes a beachbreak have decent waves? Bathymetry, tide, natural and/or man-made structures?

<iframe src="https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Mpr2DL8XBp652kJVAgqhv9s4TMgPN_u/preview" width="640" height="480" allow="autoplay"></iframe>

 

[freeride76]

yes

 

[Northern_Shores]

My beach has all those things, exept the tide difference. It's trash :/

 

[manbearpig]

Your soul

 

[GromsDad]

It depends.

Seriously though, man made structures are key. Yes there are great beachbreaks in places without manmade structures but they are few and far between. A few jetties or a pier will make all the difference in the world to an otherwise featureless beach.

The island I live on has 8 miles of beachfront that could potentially be surfable but all of the best waves are concentrated into a 2 mile section that happens to have about a dozen manmade structures in the water. Occasionally a decent sandbar will pop up elsewhere on that 8 miles of beach but its the jetties that produce consistantly.

 

[theramrod]

I will ditto what GromsDad said. Our island is 25 miles long but unfortunately we dont have jettys sprinkled throughout. Our best waves are either at one of our 3 piers or close to one of the inlets that always has some variation in the sandbar. Our island isn't really blessed by the surf gods for our bathymetry consists of a shallow slope not giving us waves coming from deep water like it does just up the Gulf Stream on the Outer Banks resulting in any kind of real ground swell breaking all at once without many corners with the exception of above said zones.

 

[Chocki]

Sections?

 

[gbg]

No kooks clogging up the lineup.

 

[Northern_Shores]

France has great beachbreaks with no jetties, just big tides and nekkid t!ts on land

 

[elcalvo]

Rivermouths

 

[donuts]

any of you guys seen the mason ho clip from here yet ?

 

[Sharkbiscuit]

France has great beachbreaks with no jetties, just big tides and nekkid t!ts on land

The glaring omission so far is shorter period and/or decently angled swell, or combo swell, in addition to the other factors mentioned.

 

[CutnSnip]

round here short period windswell makes for the best days at the beachbreaks.

 

[enframed]

round here short period windswell makes for the best days at the beachbreaks.

14 seconds or less, usually.

 

[Drumsurf]

I will ditto what GromsDad said. Our island is 25 miles long but unfortunately we dont have jettys sprinkled throughout. Our best waves are either at one of our 3 piers or close to one of the inlets that always has some variation in the sandbar. Our island isn't really blessed by the surf gods for our bathymetry consists of a shallow slope not giving us waves coming from deep water like it does just up the Gulf Stream on the Outer Banks resulting in any kind of real ground swell breaking all at once without many corners with the exception of above said zones.

what island?

 

[ElOgro]

The glaring omission so far is shorter period and/or decently angled swell, or combo swell, in addition to the other factors mentioned.

Offshore wind.

 

[Sharkbiscuit]

Offshore wind.

Spot/Zone and definition of "good" dependent. Lots of Florida's high tide/inside setups actually do very well on all flavors of complete blowout, and some of our sandbars are so ruler straight that what constitutes a very ill-looking morning sickness can become peaks and ramps everywhere.

Offshores on the low tide/outside sandbar around here can wall it out and make it very thin-lipped, where you have to sort of turn just under the "lip".

I bet other places in addition to Flordy, maybe the Outer Banks, can kind of do the thing where it's messy/onshore and high tide, the mess crosses the very flooded outside sandbar, gets a bit cleaned up, then comes in to the inside sand ledge and the blowout gives the waves peak/bowl shape, and the draw off the inside ledge keeps the face itself pretty smooth.

 

[theramrod]

what island?

Bogue Banks. It's a South facing island in Central NC with Atlantic Beach on the east end and Emerald Isle to the West.

As others said about their locations we do best on a shorter period swell. 4ft @ 9 sec is probably our best size/period for true beach break. Bigger than that it's all on the outside bars

 

[Kento]

Sure, manmade structures make a significant difference but what about relatively featureless beaches?

Just about every good beachbreak I can think of has a significant dropoff and/or submarine canyon just offshore and that has to play a significant factor. That extra dose of refraction helps a lot, even more so than jetty placement IMO. Look at the difference between say, Pacific Beach and Blacks. They face pretty much the same direction, open to the same swells, hell, PB even has a pier, but laughably different in terms of wave quality. The manmade features do help with channels, though, which is a godsend for beachbreaks.

Agree about the shorter periods. Well, it's not that long periods aren't good, it's just so much water moving that everything just becomes a lot more difficult to deal with, not to mention just getting out in the first place. On the other hand, shorter periods where you can't see over the top of waves to see waves behind them can make things a royal pain in the ass. At least you don't have as much time to bemoan your soon-to-be underwater fate.

 

[keenfish]