This is what happens when NZ doesn't get in the way

[Nick Carroll]

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/this- ... ime_45169/

We've had a couple of bloody near misses this year. Probably missed the window now but. Oh well.

[steve shearer]

Yeah , was talking to one of the old school Ox locals the other day.
In the morning, before Fanning showed up with the cameras, this bloke was getting triple overhead standup barrels.
He was in his early 40's then, now early 50's.

Hope we get another day like it before we get too old he said.

The Sose swell was bigger : 12-15ft at the Ox with only a handful of paddle surfers.

But the July swell had a week long run-up of 6ft point surf. It sure was a day of days.

[Donweather]

Feck me, how slow moving was the low pressure system. Stayed in our swell window for like 5 days!!! And also marginally retro-graded westwards, thus working on an active sea state. The actual wind strengths (based on those charts) didn't appear to look overly strong. Obviously the length and duration of the fetch was the key to this one.

So why did this system not get sucked into the vortex known as the sheep shaggin isle, unlike so many systems this year so far?

[Nick Carroll]

I think the key is where it developed, it wasn't a closet ECL running off to the east but a deep trough that formed north of a v strong eastern Tasman high. This pushed the fetch a bit more north than a lot of what's been going on this year.

Wind doesn't need to be over the top to create a solid groundswell. As long as the wind's 40knots and the fetch hangs around for a couple of days, that will get it done. That's what most 10' North Shore days grow out of.

[steve shearer]

yeah, where it developed and the retrograding back towards the east coast, just as the fetch was reaching maximum intensity, usually by then those systems get captured by the uppers and steered SE or sheered to bits by the STJ.

I was thinkin about it this morning, in the dark, whilst cleaning windows in the pissing rain.

Sure, surf media history has recorded Fanning as the man of the match but in reality the swell peaked early in the morning, around the high tide, with solid 10-12ft surf that was being groomed by a 20knot straight westerly.
Only a handful were taking off deep in the peak, which was thick and throwing (Shieldsy's pics were all taken later, when the swell and wind calmed down and it got picture perfect).
Early on it was thick and ferocious.
Glen Curtis and a handful of locals (my mate Jack and bro Pete) were geting solidly shacked on Hawaiian style power waves with North Coast pointbreak perfection.
You needed a 7'6" plus to be part of the game.
Curto was the man out there, he surfed with an angry insouciance, as if he had been waiting for this day all his life to redress the injustices meted out to him by the vagaries of the surf industry.
By the time Fanning showed up the surf was half the size.........oral history around the Ox records a different version of events to what the mags focussed on.

[oldman]

That was nicely recorded NC. Funny how that fickle pebble at north end of Coogee turned it on.

I have never seen it do anything quite like that before or since. The waves just lined up perfectly for it, slightly nor east direction and it sort of showed what the rock platform underneath was like. It probably handled the swell as well as anywhere, and there were some amazing rides had out there. It really did look like hugely impressive.

I can't work out how anyone manages to paddle out at the ox on days like that. I think it was Mark Warren's legendary book that described the ox as 'when its big, it's as difficult a paddle out as anywhere in the world.' I believed him.

[steve shearer]

Actually Olds, the paddle that morning wasn't too bad.

The swell had some spacing to it; some sets and lulls.
It was easy enough to sprint across the sandbank between sets.

The Cyclone Sose paddle-out was diabolical.
I tried 4times and got smashed all the way to the boat channel.

Finally, after seeing my brother get a rocket drop on a legit 12foot wave, and thinking there's no way I can live with that, I had another go and got out. Got a couple before a step-ladder 10 wave set of 15footers broke on me and snapped the leggy. Swam in and got scraped to buggery on the rocks but the board had not a scratch.

How long till the next one Huey?

[alakaboo]

yeah, thanks, remind me that i missed the best SEQ point break surf ever!
(not that i would have been out)

i was in indo for that swell.
can't remember the exact dates, but i think i was sitting in Bali waiting for the boat to Sumbawa, reading emails from my buddies back home about Burleigh!

then we got to sumbawa. all was forgotten and forgiven.

great article, but the way surfline breaks up their stories gives me the irrits...

[Donweather]

That sheep shaggin isle aint gonna stop this one!!!

[brendo]

That was nicely recorded NC. Funny how that fickle pebble at north end of Coogee turned it on.

I have never seen it do anything quite like that before or since. The waves just lined up perfectly for it, slightly nor east direction and it sort of showed what the rock platform underneath was like. It probably handled the swell as well as anywhere, and there were some amazing rides had out there. It really did look like hugely impressive.

I can't work out how anyone manages to paddle out at the ox on days like that. I think it was Mark Warren's legendary book that described the ox as 'when its big, it's as difficult a paddle out as anywhere in the world.' I believed him.

i got pics of coogee bombie from 4 or 5 yrs back late one weekday arvo. its pumping at 8 + with a crew of bra boys out. moff had to bring the ski round from the bra to rescue 4 euros who paddled out then realised they were in serious shit. i got a pic with 3 of em on the ski with him after pullin the last one from in front of the cliff face. it was one of the swells where we had an ex tc drift south, then a week later a mackin south off a huge fetch down tassie way. shearer will remember it

hey shearer, was it pelican you were talkin to? if you wanna hit the point earlier than him u got paddle out in complete darkness....been like that for 20yrs+

[Donweather]

Am I the only one getting rather excited about now?

[Topher]

Am I the only one getting rather excited about now?

Excited about the swell possibilities for the east coast, or excited that the waves might sink new zealand?

[Donweather]

There's only one thing that get's me this excited!!!

[Nick Carroll]

yeah well it might be an OK burst of easterly swell but the fetch slid backward and turned SE/NW a bit quicker than forecast.

so don't get too knotty don...

[Nick Carroll]

and shearer, Sose may have been a bit bigger here and there along the east coast, but it was also smaller in a lot of other areas ... and it was gone pretty quick too.

Typical slightly erratic TC fetch wandering down the coast, bit beefier than normal, but...

July 01 was, well yeah. Every committed surfer at the time would have a good story or ten from that thing.

[steve shearer]

Friday July 7 and Sat July 8 were the peak days of the swell.

Winds turned pre-frontal NW here on Friday......I walked up the beach from Broken to Suffolk Park with an 8foot single fin McCoy gun under arm.
The beach was deserted and the surf was Cloudbreaking miles out to sea.
I ran into Jim Banks who was checking the surf. We were frothing on a go-out.
It was solid 10-12 ft.
We went to the Ox and it was devil wind. Glen Curtis and Benny Holmes were out, ducking and weaving and holding on through some truck-sized pits.
The wind worsened while we were checking it and we threw around a few options: a backbeach cove that breaks off the back of some rocky islets and can dish up huge lefts on occasions such as that one.....
Drove back to Broken and ran down the track.....the lefts were huge alright, but no line-up whatsoever, just random waves exploding in a massive area.
Tallows? Tweed Bar?
we went to Tallows, it was slightly unruly 12ft, looking a cross between G-Land and Puerto Escondido.
We watched it for a goodly while.
"whaddya reckon Jim?"
"might let that wind swing more west and come back later".

Jim dropped me in town and I came back an hour later. Willsy and Warren Cornish were towing into huge macking lefts.
2 blokes had paddled round from wategoes, round the Cape and both got washed in by a mega set without catching a wave.


I went into full panic froth-out mode, trying in vain to find someone who would paddle round the Cape with me.
I could find no body.
Finally I tried punching out through Cosy Corner.
I tried for 2 hours and never got close. The swell was relentless.

The next morning the Ox was 10foot and perfect.
We surfed for 7 hours in 2 sessions. I was fcuked from the day before.
Took a month to get over it.

[marcus]

kinda related, this is what we had down cronulla way
http://forum.realsurf.com/forum/viewtop ... =8&t=17771
should i make a run home for the weekend? or still to early to call?

[Donweather]

yeah well it might be an OK burst of easterly swell but the fetch slid backward and turned SE/NW a bit quicker than forecast.

so don't get too knotty don...

So what's your call for wave heights in SE Qld then Nick? Granted it's a brief pulse, and by my calcs, the sad part is that the swell looks to actually peak during the night, right about time the nice offshore moderate W'ly winds will groom her to perfection. I'm calling 5ft+ at the peak of this swell event, taking note of my comments above mind you.