Wave forecasting site Surfline has changed how people surf
Wave forecasting site Surfline has changed how people surf
Being able to predict when and where to catch the perfect wave seems like a dream come true for surfers. That’s the very promise behind the surf-forecasting company Surfline. It created a website that follows surf conditions at hundreds of beaches around the world.
Yet some surfers aren’t sold. Caroline Mimbs Nyce, a technology writer for The Atlantic (as well as a beginning surfer herself), wrote about the “love-hate” relationship surfers have with Surfline. While beach crowding is one issue, the ambivalence is also about the nature and culture of the sport.
“Is surfing about everyone being able to get out in the water? Is this a cheat code to only go when it’s really ideal?” Mimbs Nyce asks. “A lot of surfing used to be related to counterculture as well. Should you be optimizing your job around your surfing or should you do the opposite way around?”
The following is an edited transcript of Mimbs Nyce’s conversation with “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal.
Kai Ryssdal: Tell me how a technology reporter for “The Atlantic” got interested in surf and technology.
Caroline Mimbs Nyce: So I’m a beginner surfer here in Los Angeles.
Ryssdal: How’s it going?
Mimbs Nyce: You know, it’s going. It’s slow, but better than I thought it would be.
Ryssdal: Good. Anyway, so you’re a beginning surfer, and …
Mimbs Nyce: A beginner surfer and I had just been fascinated about how quickly my life started to revolve around this website called Surfline. And my weekends, and all of my schedule basically, is me planning to go out and surf based on when this website tells me that it’s ideal to.
Ryssdal: So I have it up in the studio, but I’m gonna let you give the expert’s description. What can this website do for me, should I be a surfer? Which, to be clear, I’m not.
Mimbs Nyce: So Surfline is, at its core, a wave-forecasting website. They have a thousand cameras, millions of people use it to plan where and when to go out. So just before we started talking, I looked up Malibu. Looks like it’s a cruddy couple of days in Malibu.
Ryssdal: “Cruddy.” That’s a very surfer term, a cruddy couple of days.
Mimbs Nyce: Yeah, I’m not sure it’s ideal surfing conditions over there right now. In addition to doing these forecasts, they partner with the World Surf League in order to decide when professional contests are held. They blog about upcoming swells and recent good waves that people have caught. So it’s sort of a full-scale media company and I found that surfers have a love-hate relationship with it.
Ryssdal: All right, so we’ll get to the love-hate thing in a second, but I do want to point out here the data, right, because this is kind of a data play. It tells you what the onshore winds are and you can click and, you know, pay a subscription fee to get live wind. It tells you with a 2-millimeter wetsuit, it’s 66 degrees Fahrenheit, so yeah, that’s what you should wear. It tells you it’s a dropping tide, 2½-foot waves, 7-foot swells, winds out of the west. Anyway …
Mimbs Nyce: And you’ve got the color codes. I feel like that’s very important.
Ryssdal: Oh there are the color codes.
Mimbs Nyce: You know, it’ll tell you it’ll be yellow or orange if it’s bad to go out, and you’ll get that green light if it’s good.
Ryssdal: OK, so let’s get to the whole love-hate thing.
Mimbs Nyce: Yes, pretty much since Surfline has existed, it’s been polarizing. I think that this really gets at a question of the spirit of the sport. Is surfing about everyone being able to get out in the water? Is this a cheat code to only go when it’s really ideal? A lot of surfing used to be related to counterculture, as well. Should you be optimizing your job around your surfing or should you do the opposite way around?
Ryssdal: Right. So let me, let me paraphrase: Has surfing sold out to the man?
Mimbs Nyce: Oh, that’s a tough question.
Ryssdal: I know. What do you think? You’re, you wrote the piece, you’re a surfer, you tell me.
Mimbs Nyce: So I certainly think we’ve seen surfing has become a lot more commercialized. There are more surfers, there was an increase of 1 million, according to one study, from 2009 to 2022. But you know, I also like seeing people in the water and it’s a special experience, and I hope a lot of people get to share in that.
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