Trestles Pro
June 9th -17th

Following on from the Aussie Treble the CT now shoots across the Pacific for the next contest: Trestles in Southern California. Not so much a leg of the Championship Tour as a single contest. Call it the American Individual.

With the recent restructuring of the CT schedule, Trestles has been shunted forward this year, swapped with Cloudbreak, where this year's Finals Day will be held before we see a permanent (and much welcome) return to Pipeline next year.

The field has been cut to 22 on the Men’s side and 10 on the Women’s making it a more streamlined event - able to be run in three days.

That said, they still need swell, so how’s the forecast looking?

(WSL/Rowland)

Having a quick look across the "big, beautiful ocean" - otherwise known as the South Pacific - it's devoid of any major swell-generating systems until this later this weekend.

However, if we rewind back to late last week, a strong frontal progression pushed up past New Zealand’s South Island, moving further east before breaking down at about Tahitian longitudes.

This is in Trestle's long-range swell window (with a travel time of over a week), so the elongated fetch of severe-gales should generate an inconsistent yet prolonged groundswell event for next week. It'll arrive south-west before tending more south-southwest.

The initial phase of south-west energy should arrive on Monday the 9th - the first day of the waiting period - building through the day ahead of a peak on Tuesday/Wednesday to an infrequent 4 feet on the sets. 

The reinforcing south-southwest aspect should maintain 3 feet to occasionally 4 feet waves through the end of the week before fading into the following weekend.

Local winds for these four days look generally favourable with light, offshore winds ahead of weak sea breezes. Fog may be an issue some mornings but hopefully not enough to prevent competition getting under way.

It'll be fairly classic Trestles summertime conditions, though the waves may be at the upper end of inconsistency. If the swell is too slow to run heats (or conditions not ideal for other reasons), the WSL may have a contingency plan as there's a follow up southerly groundswell from a more proximate region to Trestles.

A slow moving Southern Ocean gyre forming south of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) this weekend should produce multiple fronts that will project fetches of gale to at times severe-gales from the west-southwest to the south-west.

Though the winds push through Trestles' southern swell window, some question marks remain: Forecasting models diverge on how well the fronts will be aimed towards Trestles. At this stage we may expect 3-4 foot surf from Sunday through to the end of the waiting period, arriving with greater consistency than the first swell. Local winds will also be favourable.

The second swell is a long way out, and it also may not be required if the contest gets run during the first swell, however we'll continue to track these developments over the coming days.