Tuesday 10 3 17 morning call

Another day in the name of the foil, as I SUP'ed it first and sailed it after. Conditions were excellent in the morning: photo by Alex Aguera.


Here's a couple of foiling buddies in photos I took with the gopro.


Jason circled around me. He likes no paddle and no footstraps.


Later in the afternoon the windsurfers hit the waves at Hookipa. Photo by Jimmie Hepp from this gallery.


5am significant buoy readings
South shore
No readings at the outer buoys, but here's what Pat Caldwells says:
A storm-force low pressure system tracked east along 60S to the S to SE of New Zealand 9/25-27 with seas growing above 30 feet for a large area. The fetch was aimed at the Americas. With such a large source, odds increase for surf locally from angular spreading.
The PacIOOS American Samoa buoy showed surf from this source 9/30 out of 190-200 degrees. Since this location is further west than swell rays to Hawaii, this gives more confidence the swell will arrive locally.
Low, long-period swell is predicted to pick up Tuesday and hold into Wednesday from 180-200 degrees.

Below are the maps of the days he mentions starting from the left: 25, 26, 27. In my opinion, the chances of getting angular spreading from a fetch like the one I circled are extremely slim. They will increase in a few days from the 28 on, but we'll talk about it later in the week.


North shore
NW101
9.2ft @ 10s from 342° (NNW)

N
4ft @ 10s from 308° (WNW)

NW001
9.7ft @ 10s from 355° (N)

Waimea
2.9ft @ 9s from 333° (NNW)

2.8ft @ 13s from 346° (NNW)

2.6ft @ 11s from 340° (NNW)

Pauwela
3.6ft @ 9s from 337° (NNW)

3ft @ 12s from 335° (NNW)

Massive difference between the readings of the two NW buoys and the other ones. That is because their position is in front of the fetch. Pauwela only registers 3f 12s, which confirms my intuition that the Surfline forecast of 5f was too optimistic. There should be overhead waves at Hookipa though, stay tuned for the upcoming beach report.

Three days is a row of wrong prediction are too many for me and, as blog reader Ben pointed out, this model seems to be doing a better job. Too bad it has an absolutely horrible color scheme and overall graphics, but if the prediction is correct, we'll live with it. Let's put it to the test: today the trades should start very easterly with no wind at all on the north shore until 9am. Below is the 10am map that shows the windline engulfing Hookipa.


This is the noon wind map.


North Pacific still shows the NNW fetch remnant of the low that created the current swell. That's good news, we're gonna have waves for a few days.


South Pacific went back to nothing.


Morning sky shows a massive cloud to the west of us, but it shouldn't effect us.