Roni Eshel’s goFlow.me relies on surfer reports for what’s really up with the waves
A big wave breaks at Westward Beach in Malibu, Calif.
Roni Eshel rose before dawn and automatically checked Surfline.com for the surf report. No matter where the Israeli surf champion, now 31, was in the world, she could find out the size of the swells, the weather, and general conditions of any surf spot. But there was a problem.
“It wasn’t real-time. The reports aren’t always reliable — they might be from hours earlier when conditions were different,” Eshel says. “Then I thought, why doesn’t it have eyewitness reports — like Waze?”
Using the popular social-sharing traffic app as her inspiration, Eshel moved to Santa Monica three years ago and launched goFlow.me, which applies crowd-reporting to surfing. She claims the free mobile app now has more than 100,000 surfers and paddle boarders sending in reports on waves, weather and tides.
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FOR THE RECORD
Sept. 23, 9:53 a.m.: A previous version of this post gave the site for the mobile app as GoFlow.com. It is goFlow.me.
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“GoFlow gives you messages from people you trust on what’s happening nearby — so you don’t waste driving time in L.A. traffic,” she says. Example: “On fire now” was a recent description of El Porto — the surf break off Manhattan Beach.
In recent months, GoFlow has broadened beyond ocean sports into mountain biking, hiking, diving and snow sports, which can all be accessed from the same app. The cycling version, one of the newest, was spotty, but that may change as the communities grow.
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