Stent Road Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. We’ve got a classic 16-day window for Stent Road, and it’s a bit of a wild ride. Let’s get into it.

The real standout for this whole period is Thursday morning, August 20. We’re kicking off with a solid 6 ft of WSW groundswell, with a period of 14 seconds, packing a huge amount of energy (1491). The wind is a glassy 3 mph from the north, so the surface is going to be perfect. This is a reef and point setup, and with that long period, it’s going to love the structure. The water is sitting at 57°, which is bang on average for this time of year. This is big, powerful stuff though – at 6 ft, it’s pushing into expert territory. It’s consistent, and the offshore wind direction is from the east, right in the sweet spot for the optimum SW swell direction. This is the session to aim for. Be aware, crowds are often a factor here, so you’ll want to be on it early.

The good news doesn’t last long. The afternoon of the 20th and all of Friday the 21st are a write-off with onshore winds and marginal conditions. Saturday the 22nd gets smaller and choppy with cross-onshore wind.

Then things get properly heavy. Sunday the 23rd through Monday the 24th sees a massive pulse of 13 ft to 15 ft swell. The energy is off the charts (3419, 3411, 8676). This is serious, expert-only territory and the wind is a messy cross-onshore. The setup looks more interesting for kite surfing than paddle surfing right now.

We get a brief window on Tuesday the 25th with a still-large 10 ft to 8 ft WSW swell and clean onshore wind, but the quality is still marginal. After that, Wednesday the 26th and Thursday the 27th are messy with moderate cross-shore winds.

Now, look ahead to Saturday, August 29. This is your second real standout. The morning has a 7 ft swell from the WNW with a short period of 9 seconds and a clean offshore wind from the ENE (1632 energy). The big surprise is the afternoon: a tiny 3 ft swell, but it’s a 20-second period groundswell from the WSW with glassy, 3 mph offshore wind. The energy is still high (1656). This long period swell will be very straight at a beach break, but at a reef and point like Stent Road, it’ll be lining up beautifully. It’s a promising, glassy session, but it’s over a week out, so don’t set your watch by it yet.

The final week into early September is a slow fade. We get some clean cross-offshore winds on the 28th, 30th, and 31st, but the swell is small (4 ft to 5 ft) and the energy drops off. By the 1st of September the swell is gone, and the south wind on the 3rd just makes a mess of things.

So, to sum it up: the absolute best is this Thursday morning, August 20, for a powerful, glassy session. The second best is looking like Saturday, August 29, for a glassy, long-period clean-up set. The rest of the window is either too big and messy, or too small and onshore.

Rusty.

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