In between sessions I took some photos at the harbor jetty where the HSA contest was being held. This keiki was catching the white water on the inside and gets a 10 for the cuteness.
The photos below show the show that Jackson Bunch put up in his heats. This is 10.40am and that's when the waves started pumping and were still a manageable size.
Looking and surfing like Kanoa Igarashi.
The back half of his board is completely out the back of the wave. He stuck the turn and continued with perfect flow.
The term "air drop" gets overused a lot (specially by the WSL commentators), but this is a real one.
As soon as he connected with the water at the bottom, he seamlessly engaged the rail and his eyes were already on the spot for the next maneuver. Impressive display of surfing from this young and very promising man.
4am significant buoy readings
South shore
No energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 1.2f 11s plus 0.6f 14s at 8am. Very small stuff, probably flat to knee high.
North shore
NW101
8.5ft @ 11s from 328° (NW)
Waimea
8.3ft @ 14s from 334° (NNW)
4.2ft @ 9s from 342° (NNW)
Pauwela
8.2ft @ 14s from 332° (NNW)
4.8ft @ 9s from 350° (N)
Consistent sizes at all the reported buoys, but notice how the period went down to 11s already at the NW buoy. That's because it's well offshore and gets hit by the swell earlier. The same gradual decrease in period will happen throughout the day locally. Below is the graph of Pauwela next to Surfline forecast for yesterday and today. Notice how the two graphs are similar (the main difference is an earlier than predicted peak). I put two arrows to indicate how the offshore size went up from 6 to 12 f in 6 hours. A foot and hour is a steep rise and that was clearly visible in the water. By 2pm, it got too big for even the jetty inside the harbor, which was tripling up in a pretty horrible washed out way. Very hard for the young kids in the water to find a good wave.
Every time I get to this point when writing the call, I feel like I said enough, but for some readers maybe I didn't, so today I'll do an extra effort. To recap: 8.2 f 14s is the reading at Pauwela at 4am, that's our starting point. Then the combination of the reading at the NW buoys and the Surfline forecast (which can be accessed by anyone at link n.15), tells us what's gonna happen during the day. In this case, slowly declining size and period (hence size of the breaking waves). How big it's gonna be at all the different spots, it's a guess that each single reader should make an effort to do. It might take a little time, but after you observe buoy readings and the size at your spot(s) a few times, you'll know enough.
Wind map at noon shows an inversion line (circled in red), probably a sub-front line which will pass over the north shore around 10-11am. That's when the wind on the north shore will switch from light offshore to light onshore. Conditions on the north shore will be pretty clean in the early morning, don't wait too long.
North Pacific shows the strong fetch we saw yesterday still stirring waters towards us and getting closer. A fetch that follows the swell it's generating and keeps building the same waves is called captured and usually is associated with the biggest swells. 18f 16s from 324 is the Surfline prediction for Wednesday at 2pm. Note that this swell is the biggest of the last three, but it's also the more west. Good for the Pipe contest, but way too big on Wednesday and with questionable winds. The best day should be Friday, imo.
South Pacific shows a fetch SW of New Zealand, which will provide some blockage, but we should receive a little bit of energy next week. 1f 16s called by Surfline for Tuesday Dec 17.
Morning sky.
1 comment:
That Jackson kid was killing it. Can't believe how much strength he had in some of those carves.
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