The Boiler Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, Rusty here, and I’m looking at a pretty bleak picture for the next couple of weeks. The Boiler is our only option in the whole forecast period, and to be straight with you, it’s not looking like the kind of spot you want to be on when the wind’s howling and the waves are just messy. It’s a reef break, and when it’s on, it can be magic, but it's also inconsistent. We’ve got a long stretch of poor conditions before anything even remotely surfable shows up.

The first decent chance you’ll see is on Monday the 31st of August, and it’s not exactly something to get the heart racing. The swell is from the WSW, pushing in at about 8 ft with a period of 9 seconds. That's a moderate energy swell (882) and there's some decent size in it. The wind is coming from the WNW, cross-off, and that’s good news for cleaner conditions. This is the only time in the whole outlook where we get a clean look at the wave face. But be warned, the wave energy is strong, and that 8 ft is going to be pretty meaty, so this is for the experienced crew only. It's also likely to be a bit of a crowd magnet, being one of the few windows of opportunity.

On Tuesday the 1st of September, the swell drops off to about 6 ft, but the wind swings to the west and goes cross, making it lumpy. It’s pretty ordinary. Then we’ve got a big gap of nothing much until Saturday the 5th of September. That morning the swell is down to about 3 ft from the WSW with a 6 second period. It’s a small, weak affair (148). But the wind is light from the WNW, cross-off, so it will be clean. This is surfable, but very ordinary. That afternoon, a long period 10-second groundswell from the same direction pushes the wave energy up to a moderate 200, but the wind goes cross, so the surface gets a bit of a chop. It’s still small, around 3 ft, and the long period means it might not be breaking as well as you'd hope at a beach break, but for The Boiler as a reef, the shape should be okay.

After that, things drop off again. We see a little clean patch on Monday the 7th of September afternoon with a 2 ft, 9-second swell from the W and a gentle cross-off, but it’s tiny. Tuesday the 8th of September morning brings a light offshore from the NNW, but the swell is only 1 ft, so it's barely a ripple. That afternoon, the swell builds slightly to 3 ft with a very short 6-second period and a moderate offshore wind. It’s clean, but the wave quality is going to be poor with such a short period.

So, if I had to pick the best of a bad bunch, I’d say the Monday morning of the 31st of August is your standout, if you can handle the size. For the rest of the time, you're chasing tiny, clean windows of small swell. Honestly, for the first week, the only good-looking sessions are Monday the 31st morning and maybe Saturday the 5th. After that, it’s a long wait with almost nothing worth paddling out for. The water temp is 68°, which is about 7° warmer than normal for this time of year—that’s very unusual.

Stay patient, the forecast can change.

Rusty.

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