SURFING : An Auditory Encyclopedia of Surfing at Just 2 Bucks a Call
Every day, a little-known headquarters in a second-floor office just off Main Street in Huntington Beach churns out enough information on the ocean’s behavior to fill an encyclopedia.
The telephone service (Fig says a typical call runs about $2), known as Surfline/Wave-Trak, has become one of the surfer’s most sophisticated tools in predicting where to surf and how big the surf will be. It’s the only private company offering daily and extended forecasts that include surf size, shape, tidal and wind conditions and best spots.
Since Fig works there part time, we’ve been eager to visit the place together and talk to wave prognosticators, so we did.
Fig: Think of it, man. You’re lying in bed all warm and toasty. Instead of driving up and down the coast checking it out, you call Sean. Yeah, it costs money, but you score tidal conditions or whether it’s bumpy or glassy.
Inside Wave Central, computers hum, desktops are scattered with satellite hurricane photos. Meteorologist Christopher Borg scans a computer screen, plotting weather fronts from around the globe.
Surfline’s proprietor, Sean Collins, uses a network of surfing correspondents around the globe, National Weather Service buoys, weather satellites and even merchant ships to predict tomorrow’s surf conditions at such exotic spots as the Sumatran island of Nias, Costa Rica and Fiji, all with the same keyboard command it takes to call up the report up PCH at Huntington Beach Cliffs.
After decades with an infatuation for hurricanes that verges on an obsession, Collins, 40, has become surfing’s wave guru; El Queso Grande --The Big Cheese. He runs the business with partner Jerry Arnold, who handles the East Coast from Florida.
When surf magazines dispatch photographers to wave paradises, the bags don’t get packed until after a briefing by Collins on surf conditions at their destinations. Beer companies hire Sean when they shoot their beach commercials; surfing contest organizers fret if his line is busy, and top pro surfers battle for the phone number to his direct line.
Fig says distance is no problem.
Collins: “Once it was an organizer for the Billabong Pro contest (3,000 miles away in Sunset Beach, Hawaii), and he called the day before the men’s finals. He said: ‘Sean, we’re gonna have the women surf in the afternoon to allow the men to get in the water in the morning, and we wanted to know if you can tell us what time we should start our heats based on conditions.’ ”
Sean looked at his charts and said: “Uh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I would put the women in the water first thing in the morning, because it looks like you’re going to have some size tomorrow, possibly 15-foot plus.”
Organizers wisely changed the schedule: women first. “I remember I got a lot of phone calls after that from the women pros, all thanking me,” Collins said. By the time the women’s final heat was over, contest waves were macking at 18-feet plus.
Tell him about Stewart. (Mike Stewart, the world’s No. 1 bodyboarder.)
Collins: “He called me once, worried. He wanted to know if he should leave the islands. I told him to go to Pipeline, and he said: ‘No. I was just there early in the morning, and it’s flat.’ I said: ‘But it won’t be. Put your wet suit on, Mike, and go out at 10:30 a.m.; it’s gonna be building to 10 feet.’ He did, and it was. He had a great time telling his friends: ‘Hey, I just knew.’ ”
Collins said he also relies on NWS weather buoys that electronically ship data to a satellite and from there to the NWS headquarters on the East Coast. From there it’s sent to another satellite where Collins can retrieve it by subscribing to a service.
You can get Surfline’s information by calling (900) 844-SURF. But you can also get recorded information on surf conditions from city lifeguards for free. For the report at Huntington Beach, call (714) 536-9303; Newport Beach, (714) 673-3371, and in San Clemente, (714) 492-1011.
Readers: Collins offered us a special forecast and said that by the time you read this, the surf will be head-high, diminishing through Halloween weekend. GET ON IT!
CONGRATULATIONS: To Kelly Slater, for clinching the world title while on the Brazilian leg of the Assn. of Surfing Professionals tour. Bob Bolen, former owner of Greek Surfboards in Huntington Beach, won the grandmasters at the Western Surfing Assn. state open at Church’s last weekend.
