On Crowds and Forecasts

[nathant...@gmail.com]

I know it's risky, and a subject that is often tip-toed around, but
after all these years, I still hear complaints about crowds and how
surf forecasters are responsible. I though don't agree.

In fact, I've done some research and compiled a simple report on the
subject, which is open now for discussion in the Surf Forecasting
Group.

This new page, open for discussion, is at:
http://groups.google.com/group/surf-forecasting/web/on-crowds-and-forecasts

Looking forward to hearing everyone's opinions on this somewhat
controversial subject.

-Nathan

[dontsurf805]

There is no doubt that the world is now flat, in that almost any
information one desires is easily accessible. There is no such thing
as a "secret swell." Gone is the mentality that if you venture away
from your home break that you should have respect for the locals.
Gone is the mentality that in order to keep the crowds down it is a
good idea to not bring more than one friend with you or should I even
mention dare to do a solo session. Now we have self proclaimed surf
forecasters who send "surf alerts" via email and text message alerting
people to yet another "major swell event" that their extended, long
term models are showing and that they are calling as double to triple
overhead, when in reality it ends up being 5-7 foot. Now, people
venture far away from where they live to surf; they may boat in or
walk in or simply park closeby.

Why does boat after boat have 4 guys minimum? I was surfing the other
day with 4 guys out and a boat pulled up with 7 guys. Are you kidding
me? Unfortunately, no. All 7 of them paddled out at once and almost
instantly tripled the amount of surfers in the water. All of them
started paddling for every wave. No respect, no clue.

As the line-ups get more crowded, so does the agro factor in the
water. We now need to fight for waves and yell and fight off those who
drop in on us. There are still unwritten rules of respect and do's
and don't; unfortunately, it seems like nobody obeys those rules.

Nowadays people are so distracted with their gadgets, myspace, and
long for attention by posting videos of their incredible surf session
of others' "secret spot" or home breaks on youtube.

People are self centered, clueless, and are readily abundant.

Welcome to surfing in SoCal. It is a jungle out there and it is not
going to get any better.

I urge all forecasters to show restraint and responsibility in their
forecasts. Stop the over-hype; stop the "surf alerts"; stop adding
mayhem to the line-up circus. Start educating your readers as to the
meaning of respect and to those unwritten rules of surfing. Start
reigning in this circus-like atmosphere you have created. Start
taking responsibility for yourself and your actions.

[jon-sf]

Nathan,

Your post promotes the idea that surf forecasters are not responsible
for the large (and increasing) number of surfers. Your points are
well-founded and I agree - they are not. However, the issue is
crowding, which is not the sum total of surfers in the world, but
rather the situation when an exorbitant number of surfers turn-up at a
surf spot on a given day. I believe that surf forecasting is
responsible for increased crowding, especially on those relatively few
very good days of surf that occur in the early days of a new swell -
the days that true surfers live for.

Before surf forecasting the only hope of scoring a new swell was to be
constantly checking the surf. This inevitably limited those that ever
experienced the magic days to the rare few who had made a lifestyle
choice to be free at a moment's notice, and who had the proximity to
be constantly roaming the coast to catch the moment.

With forecasting, this surfer's lifestyle sacrifice is no longer
required. To the extreme, forecasting allows the executive surfer to
reschedule his appointments and organize his jet travel as much as a
week in advance to turn up on the anointed day. It's not much harder
than scheduling a tee time, and with increasingly accurate forecasts,
generally fruitful. And it's not just the execs. It is many people,
with various degrees of work and family commitment, that can now be at
the beach when, and only when, it is good.

I think it is pretty obvious that accurate surf forecasting has led to
increased crowds (on the good days), and your attempt to deflect it
somewhat surprising. And in the interest of full disclaimer, I count
myself as one of many beneficiaries who might have given up surfing
long ago had it not been for forecasting!

On Jan 25, 5:19 pm, nathantoddc...@gmail.com wrote:
> I know it's risky, and a subject that is often tip-toed around, but
> after all these years, I still hear complaints about crowds and how
> surf forecasters are responsible. I though don't agree.
>
> In fact, I've done some research and compiled a simple report on the
> subject, which is open now for discussion in the Surf Forecasting
> Group.
>

> This new page, open for discussion, is at:http://groups.google.com/group/surf-forecasting/web/on-crowds-and-for...

[vasiles...@yahoo.com]

I am nor a surfer neither a forecaster but I hope one day I'll be able
to do a decent job at both :)

Now on the subject, I have to say that overcrowding and rudeness are
noticeable in all the sports. Go in the local mountains after they've
gotten some snow. Huge lines at lifts, slopes crowded, people not
caring about the rest on the slope etc. Who's to blame there? The TV
stations that predicted the snow? Now everybody is happy when the same
TV station predicts a storm or a rainy day and you listened and gotten
an umbrella with you right?

My opinion is that is a culture related thing. Everybody is looking
for the "Stoke" or the "Hooked" or the "Cool" and where best to find
it? Surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding etc. And what best way to
enjoy the "Stoke" but with your "Bro's" and just show me that somebody
that goes to have a great time without his 10 "bff's" or "bro's".
Another matter is related to "respect" right? What best way to get
respect than to prove that you deserve it. So here you have a whole
generation that needs to get their "respect" by taking it from the
previous one...

Now all that I've iterated above is pushed on a daily basis to all the
young people through reality shows, movies, marketing campaigns by the
people who profit tremendously from this. Besides surfline I have no
knowledge of other forecasting services that are not free...

Just my 2 cents.

Shaka bro's, hang loose ;)
Anton

On Jan 25, 5:19 pm, nathantoddc...@gmail.com wrote:

> I know it's risky, and a subject that is often tip-toed around, but
> after all these years, I still hear complaints about crowds and how
> surf forecasters are responsible. I though don't agree.
>
> In fact, I've done some research and compiled a simple report on the
> subject, which is open now for discussion in the Surf Forecasting
> Group.
>

> This new page, open for discussion, is at:http://groups.google.com/group/surf-forecasting/web/on-crowds-and-for...

[spora...@gmail.com]

Q: If Vasilescu learns to surf and consequently crowds the lineup
, the who is to blame for this particular situation?

> I am nor a surfer neither a forecaster but I hope one day I'll be able
> to do a decent job at both :)

A bit of hero worship here.

A:: Nathan Cool

and consequently the only reasonable answer to this thread!

Haha!



On Jan 26, 10:39 pm, "vasilescu_an...@yahoo.com"

[Downtown]

I've been surfing a LONG time in Southern California. For the first
twenty years, the freeways weren't very crowded and there was still
plots of land here and there that hadn't been built upon. There was
no "Inland Empire" and there were still a few (yes a few) orchards and
dairies within driving distance. I'd be interested to know the
percentage of the population that surfed in the 70s....apply that
percentage to the population today and what do you get? Mind you,
we've added some housing and freeways, malls everywhere, tons of cars
(and Starbucks), but we haven't added any coastline (we have lost some
though....).

Does forecasting add to the crowds? Probably some, but I wouldn't
think as much as many other things we could blame. Those would
include, as mentioned above, population growth, TONS of marketing by
the surf wear industry, cheap CounterCulture surfboards made in China
and sold at Costco, softboards, the film industry, etc. Not to
mention more/better communication (cell phones), better general
knowledge of weather patterns, and more surf friends living in
different places.

We're all responsible...we want to maximize our time, minimize our
disappointments so we look to innovation to help us get and edge. For
me, much of the time, the forecast doesn't tell me to go surfing, it
tells me what board to bring.

[spora...@gmail.com]

I know I get alot more sleeping in vs. 'always checking the surf' like
I did
in the 70's through mid 80's. Further those nights before bed and
mornings of waking at 5am and
hitting the weather cube 'on' bar and listening to the inner waters
bouys days
are over. But still do that from time to time via the internet. 5am
call, look at the bouys
and wind models and decide what to do. Especially during a 2-3+ day
wind storm.
Alot of times those winds die out over night 12-36 hours earlier than
forecast, leaving
good peaky wind swell at NW focal points.

[Surfnwork]

I go back a little farther than Nathan so that probably makes me
ancient. I don't think surf forecasting as we know it today has done
much to increase crowds except maybe for the first day of a
significant swell. I remember counting over 100 people in the water
at first point Malibu in the mid1960s--not a whole lot different than
today and doing multiple drive-bys on the Coast Highway at dawn
looking for a parking place at first point on a big swell in the
mid1970s. Sunset, County Line, C Street, and Mondo's all drew crowds
on decent summer weekdays in the 60s and 70s. Rincon was less crowded
in winter, but by the mid70s you saw a hefty water population on a
prime winter weekend swell. A primitive version of surf forecasting
was going on back then--people used weather radios for the NWS buoy
reports and regularly called the Zuma lifeguard tower surf report to
get a sense of swell size and direction which helped decide whether to
go north or south . More often than not we just got in the car and
drove between Malibu and Oxnard in summer and Rincon and County line
in winter looking for waves regardless of the reports. And needless
to say, word did get around in the evening when a swell came up, which
led to dawn patrols that were surprisingly crowded.

While surf forecasts take some of the aimless driving out of the
equation--a good thing for the environment--and they allow some folks
to plan their lives a bit better around the surf, I don't think they
make a big difference in the number of crowded days. Crowds are a
fact of life in virtually everything we do. There are just more
people crammed into the same geography, more who surf today and more
people surfing at secondary and out of the way spots--some to escape
the crowds at the headliner spots, some who are willing to make more
effort to get to a decent wave.

Just to put it all into perspective, last Saturday morning the surf
forecast was on the money--a chest to head high clean swell in
Ventura. Even with the surf forecast, there was a fairly light crowd
through midday--everyone was laughing and joking that they couldn't
believe it was a weekend with fun waves and a relative handful of
people in the water.

Which reminds me--thanks Nathan for reminding us to smile in the
lineup.

[Paddlesurfer]

Surfing is a microcosim of the world environment. As the population
of the world expands, so does the surfing population. Like many of
you who have responded, after over 40 years of surfing, the expansion
of surfing mirrors the expansion of the world population. So does
this necessitate that our surf breaks get overly crowded because an
internet surf forecaster says a swell is on it's way? There may be
some partial truth to this. However, surf forecasting has been around
a long time; my trusty weather radio that I still have and use, the LA
Times back page weather report, word of mouth, etc. Someone mentioned
the swell of 78'. It was reported on for days before it arrived in
the LA Times, SB Newspress. Growing up surfing Hammonds, I walked to
check it out on the day it was too arrive and 40 guys were out in
waist high waves, waiting. In that instance, forecasting made a
prediction and surfers showed up, though way too early. The surfer
who understood the ocean, waves, clouds and weather pattern can easily
score good waves before the masses. Forecasting has always been there
for those who want to understand.

It is inevitable that our breaks are going to get crowded. There are
way more surfers now, digging on the feeling of the slide on a wave.
This is relative to the world population expanding, and the surfing
population will expand in some relative proportion. The industrial
age has expanded our abilities to do so many things now, faster,
easier, earlier, without much suffering. This is just the process of
evolution. We'll evolve, the world population will evolve for better
or worse, surfing will evolve, The goal here is that we should all
band together and fight to stop the destruction of our surf breaks and
environment, near and far. Once they are gone, they are gone
forever. And we will have one less surf spot to surf.

On Jan 25, 5:19 pm, nathantoddc...@gmail.com wrote:

> I know it's risky, and a subject that is often tip-toed around, but
> after all these years, I still hear complaints about crowds and how
> surf forecasters are responsible. I though don't agree.
>
> In fact, I've done some research and compiled a simple report on the
> subject, which is open now for discussion in the Surf Forecasting
> Group.
>

> This new page, open for discussion, is at:http://groups.google.com/group/surf-forecasting/web/on-crowds-and-for...

[Malcolm]

It's probably true, particularly on the first day of a hyped swell.
I've found that avoiding that is usually wise, and that the good stuff
comes towards the tail end of the swell, when everybody goes back to
work, the swells get peaky, and the waves keep coming.

Nobody ever talks about it, but wetsuits are really the cause of
overcrowding. Without them, sessions would be limited to 20-30
minutes, and the line-ups would never be crowded, except in the peak
of summer.

On Jan 25, 5:19 pm, nathantoddc...@gmail.com wrote:

> I know it's risky, and a subject that is often tip-toed around, but
> after all these years, I still hear complaints about crowds and how
> surf forecasters are responsible. I though don't agree.
>
> In fact, I've done some research and compiled a simple report on the
> subject, which is open now for discussion in the Surf Forecasting
> Group.
>

> This new page, open for discussion, is at:http://groups.google.com/group/surf-forecasting/web/on-crowds-and-for...

[6:13 Imaging]

In order for any of us to see the change we seek we need to take a
look back at our roots and remember why surfing started. We all began
for the plain and simple reasons the Hawaiians did, recreation. I
know that every time I step into the water I see a transformation in
my personality and I become happier and begin putting out tons of
positive energy. But I am no saint, and as soon as a couple more
people show up at the spot I am surfing because they read about some
monster swell I'm a little ticked off. But what I find helps is just
killing them with kindndess. "Kind of small for these over-hyped
nuggs we are supposed to be seeing huh" or "Man these fore-runners are
pretty hectic hopefully it fills in better tomorrow" these simple
things bring a shift of energy in the line-up and in the end make a
positive outcome for everyone. Most of the time, thanks to all the
mags and publicity, these people who paddle into these line-ups and
start messing things up have no idea what they are doing or that they
are even in the wrong. Most of these kooks are new to the sport, and
by turning your shoulder on them in the mags and advertising 'If you
don't surf, don't start' only makes the problem worse. Instead of
advertising not to surf why don't we advertise 'surf with respect'.
I'm not trying to go 'save the whales' on everyone but I just think
that if everyone took the time to look at our roots and look at why we
started this beautiful dance with the ocean they would realize that
'WE' ARE THE PROBLEM....but we are also the answer. Don't follow all
the hype of the mags, follow your heart and make your own path and
remember: this relationship we SHARE with the ocean is a blessing and
the only way to continue living in such harmony is to 'surf with
respect, and if you don't surf learn the rules first.'

[.]

Can forecasters be blamed?

Yes, I believe they can shoulder a large portion of the blame for
crowding.

I'm interested to know how many hits your website gets per month and
how many come to shop or just to get the milk for free. Anytime you
put something on the internet people will read it - lots of people.
Anytime you give something away for free, people will take it.

What this site has done is put everything you need to know about
finding surf into a nice tidy package with a bow on it. No need to
wake up early each morning and check it for yourself. You can just log
in and viola, the kimono is open for all to see. No need to decipher
cryptic talk and numbers from the weather radio. You can just log in
and viola, the kimono is open again.

The way I see it is the forecast sites are exploiting the resource for
their own personal gain. They attract viewers with forecasts so they
can sell stuff online to fund their business - business and profits at
your expense.

You may not be the whole reason for crowding but sites like yours are
definitely a major contributor.