West Cornwall - Massive Swell

[Graham Easterling]

THe significant wave height off Lands End has been around 20 feet all day. So the biggest waves would have been around 30ft!

I don't think there's been such a prolonged period with such big seas since the stormy '90s.

Graham

Penzance

[Graham Easterling]

There have been so very big surfable waves this month, whenever the winds dropped down.

The Cribbar reef Newquay early December

Impressive enough, but not as big as some in Portugal, a bit further from the area of generation meaning longer period and more focused on reefs. An incredible wave on the main BBC news tonight.

Graham

Penzance

[Nick Gardner]

Of course, if it's a big wave it has to be Nazare with its underwater channel creating some of the biggest (if not, the biggest) waves in the World.

I found this article about Laura from Devon making the bid to surf the biggest wave ever done by a female.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy9518nnq10o

Nick

Otter Valley, Devon 

[Graham Easterling]

That reef at Nazare must be perfectly position to fcus long period swells!

Portugal is also in a great position. The largest average swell size for anywhere in the world, for any month, is just SW of Ireland in January. The track of depressions means a very long great circle route for their development. In Ireland, from a surfing perspective, it's typically just a mess, different period swells are all muddled up in a jumble. By the time you get to Cornwall, the longer period, high energy, faster moving swells have separated out to some extent. The shorter period ones getting left behind and petering out, so conditions can be good - but are often spoilt by the local wind.

By the time you get to Potugal the long period swells are on their own (typically) and are often around 20 seconds, which means they focus on the reef so well. (They can carry on to give good surfing even in Gambia.)

You probably know all this Nick, but I just find it all so interesting I go on about it! Way back in the '60s when I was a lad at Sennen I used to be facinated by why the sea conditions bore so little relationship to the weather. Even at that time - the earliest days of Cornish surfing, the surfers seemed to understand the reasons far better than the local fisherman, who based everything on the Lundy shipping forecast. It was that which lead to my interest in weather and climate, not the other way around.

Me in Tresco Abbey Gardens when I was 11 or 12- who cares about the plants!

Can't say the screen was in the best position!

[Nick Gardner]

I love the photo of the young Graham staring into the Stevenson Screen.

I went to Nazaré (pronounced naza-ray) a couple of years and recommend a visit to the Surf Museum (run by a load of surfy people) at the São Miguel Arcanjo Fort. The top of which is where people gather to watch those giant waves and all the photos and videos are taken. It was one euro to get in and teaches all about why the World's biggest waves occur there. I don't think it will be long before an American corporate buys it up and turns it into a theme park where you can have the full 'Nazaré Experience' and fork out a fortune for the privilege. 

From Wikipedia: 

The Nazaré Canyon (Canhão da Nazaré) is a submarine canyon just off the coast of Nazaré, Portuguese Oeste region, in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean. It is the largest submarine canyon in Europe, reaching depths of about 5,000 metres (16,000 ft) deep and a length of about 230 kilometres (140 mi).

Nick

Otter Valley, Devon