Today's Victor Harbor report
Thanks for the feedback maddog, we'll have a chat to our reporter to find what's going on.
Thinking the same Maddog, I checked the reports early, Swellnet wasn't up but surfsouthoz was and as you said the report was acurate. No offense Ben but why does it take till 8am to get a report up on victor? The competition doesn't seem to have trouble getting one out at 6.30am daily. Look I realise this is a free service, and the forecasting is spot on cheers for that, but your getting done over on the daily reports.
Ended up having a fairly hassle free surf in nice clean conditions, so thanks for that keep it up.
Yep agree with you willywag - the forecasting is always spot on but an 8am surf report for Victor is just too late. Ben - you and Craig must know what Victor is like - more often than not it's onshore by 11am so if ya driving from Adelaide that's a pretty small window.
All relevant points guys, thanks for the your thoughts. We work as hard as possible to provide the best reports, forecasts and cams in the country, so if there are any issues we want make sure they're sorted out.
One of our difficulties is that we have over thirty surf reporters to monitor on a daily basis (incidentally, I'm one of 'em too). Every reporter has varying levels of enthusiasm for getting up early 365 days per year. Every reporter also has varying levels of enthusiasm about the quality of the surf - but that uniqueness is what makes Swellnet such an interesting site. Otherwise you'd check out one of the many other websites that punch out a computer generated surf report for every single surf break in the state (often with amusing levels of accuracy).
In the case of Victor Harbor, our reporter lives along the Chiton stretch - there's no way we can expect them to drive to Waits, Middleton and Goolwa before 7:30am every day of the year (or even a couple of times a week).
There's never, ever been anyone in the history of Victor surf reporting who's ever done that on a regular basis (if at all). Guesstimates always have been, and always will be made for the majority of the South Coast, relative to the reporter's location. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't - but in the absence of a better alternative, sometimes it's all we have.
It's worth pointing out that Swellnet's reports contain photos of the surf, taken by the reporter that very day. That's because our reporters are actually at the beach, looking at the surf (have a think about that). We've also invested in three excellent live surfcams at Middleton, Knights and South Port, with one or two more scheduled for the second half of the year. Couples with Craig's excellent forecasts, we're pretty confident we offer the best service in SA (and many other states for that matter).
All of this said - there are no excuses for poor quality, or frequently late surf reports and I'll have a chat to the guys to see what we can do to improve the service.
Also, we will soon launch a significant upgrade to our surf report and surf forecasts in the coming months - I don't want to say much more than that for now, but suffice to say that I'm confident the quality of service will improve significantly, on all fronts.
As a suggestion perhaps the reporter could check either Waits or Middleton instead of Chiton because those 2 places are surfed probably 90% of the year whereas the Chiton stretch really only comes into play a dozen times a year (if that) on big swells. Once you've checked one the other can easily be derived by adding/subtracting a foot or two. We all know if the Chiton stretch is working everywhere else will be borderline. Might make for a more relevant report BUT it has to be up by 7am or people will keep going elsewhere for the 6.30am report which is a shame cause you've got every other aspect covered hands down.
Bit skeptical about yesterday's photo as well - it looked onshore whereas i can guarantee you that stretch was sheet glass up until 10am at least as I was out there.
maddog - a daily Waits check is totally out of the question (a minimum 45min round trip, which would be cost and time prohibitive). Even a daily Middleton round trip at dawn would be hard to justify for someone living at Chiton. We do have to be realistic in what's achievable 365 days per year, and unfortunately some compromises do have to be made.
However, our new surf reporting solution will probably fix a lot of these issues. It'll be live in a couple of months time.
The reports of late have been fairly entertaining.I'm surprised that Waits wasn't recommended this morning as I watched people getting seriously hammered trying to get out at Bullies.Keep up the good work!It makes for manageable sized crowds down here.
I wondered where everyone was yesterday -glassy, offshore head high swell…Then I saw the report...
Stop your whingin you're lucky to have a report, a forcast and a camera to help you make your decision to go surfing. I'm glad I grew up with relying on my own skills such as checking the weather maps, understanding isobars, pressure systems etc.etc. Friday nights (before computers in every home) our eyes were glued to the weather report hoping for those northerlies or that big intense low way off into the Aussie Bight. We even use to ride our bikes at the crack of dawn down to Brighton to check to see if we could see any lines of swell coming in, if there were it was off to the mid! Going to Waits was pot-luck, if the swell was small...we headed to waits. Wish I was spoon fed in my younger days. (not really)
Sorry but today's report was an absolute shocker. You guys called it 2ft and gave it 3/10. SurfSouthOz called Middleton 3-4ft, Chiton 2-3ft and gave it a 9/10.
Checked Middleton at 8am and was clean as with light NW winds but almost a bit too big - easy 3-4ft and pretty relentless. The Dump was 2-3ft and super clean. Waits/Parsons would have been 5ft. I would have given today an 8/10 by Victor standards no probs.
Guess this forecaster is looking at the Knights/Bullies stretch and his call did keep the crowds down so I can't complain but this time round Peter Mariner of SurfSouthOz was on the money.