The odds are not good.
Are you crazy for the big stuff? Like, not to surf obviously but to watch? Viewing parties for Jaws and Nazare etc? Well if you are, I can only imagine the frustration, depression even, that you feel about California’s premier big wave Chasing Mavericks.
It seemed, early on, that this would be her year as the event had finally been extracted from a man named Griffin Guess and gifted back to its rightful heirs, owners of all professional surfing, the World Surf League.
And in December, oooee! she lit right up. A day of 50+ foot waves but… confusingly no competition. Or maybe not confusing at all. In what became a tradition, it was called off because the waves were both a) too big and b) too good and the Pretty Big Wave World Tour was born.
In any case, that was December. Certainly the Grand Ol Dame would roar in January and February.
Alas. And let us let the San Francisco Chronicle be the bearer of bad news. Let us kill that messenger instead.
The Mavericks surf contest is on the clock, and things do not look promising.
The month of March remains in the contest window, but the combination of foul weather and an unsettling forecast has greatly reduced the odds.
“This was the worst February in 28 years for Mavericks,” said San Francisco big-wave surfer Grant Washburn, who has meticulously documented every swell since the place became popularized in the early 1990s. “It’s not even close, by my records. January was not much better. There hasn’t been anything even remotely contest-worthy in almost three months.”
March is traditionally a tricky month, known for its stiff northwest/west winds (not good for Mavericks), and there’s little reason to expect much this time.
“The jet stream has been split for at least six weeks now,” said Mark Sponsler, who lends his forecasting expertise to the contest, “and even with the Active Phase of the MJO raging in the West Pacific, it hasn’t been able to feed enough energy into the jet to get it to consolidate across the width of the Pacific.
“Until that happens, the odds are low of a storm forming close enough to Mavericks to result in a contestable swell. At this point, the odds are not good of that happening.”
Etc.
Bummer.
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If there was a depression, then wouldn’t there be waves? We’ve had a depression hanging around off the east coast here for a couple of weeks it seems. Sadly it’s getting to the point where having to take a day off from surfing the points might be compulsory due to aching legs and shoulders. Hashtag; oldmantoomanywavessyndrome
Depression brings happiness
We just had the worst February I can remember here in BC snow wise. Nothing at all really, just dribs and drabs and lots of sunshine and polar vortex north winds. Surely all related.
It is. All the rain/snow has been funneled down our way in California. Waves have been shit here tho crap wind day and night
Christ almighty here we go. These flat spells just don’t fit a professional big wave tour do they. Soon news of a gigantic nuclear powered Superpool in Kansas! A BILLION DOLLARS! It’ll make three 30-foot waves then explode, destroying the United States.
I wreck oil at the possibility of being shattered into a million shards of bright light being sucked up into an industrial air vent only to be deposited outside these walls that hold me. So I rise up from the ashes into the troposphere and dance with God. Us agnostic atheists wag our finger tails with chameleon eyes that look in opposite direction as a dim witted shit eating grin appears which I immediately disregard because my face isn’t built to smile. These pandering egotistical far right hobbit fucks waddle like penguins to the edge of iInfo which is massively redundant because there are now two eyes in the word “infotainment”. Stream of consciousness drivel hand typing sometimes feels good but often I question whether it is the best way. High and tight. High and tite. So we do jerky little Capoeira movements to position and maneuver ourselves down the streamlined strip mind of a fireman pole dodging red laser motion sensors going haywire in the smoky crevices of the interwebs. A dark rented room with empty minds thumping techno music as bulky machines packages hang from our chest. Have you ever noticed how being in a club is kind of like laser tag? Which is more fun?
Mucho noise and verbage!
Naodo sense….
Come with some coherent retort that does not eminant from your obvious dependance on chemical stimulants.
DOES!
(African readers will gedit).
1. Stab thanks you for the traffic spike
2. This 🤡 has a website dedicated to calling him out as a scam artist? What kind of self respecting scammer pays $300 to the wsl to compete in a QS? Who’s scamming who here
So who is this years CJ Hobgood Centre For Sometimes Pretty Big Waves World Champion?
Unless the WSL wants to somehow hold the entire contest in the morning, or erect an incredible sun shade, Mavericks will remain an unwatchable contest, because once about 1pm hits, the blinding glare renders viewership impossible. That has nothing to do with this article I suppose.
this is bad news for bobby martinez
“The jet stream has been split for at least six weeks now,” said Mark Sponsler
Correction…the jet stream in being manipulated…we live in Orwellian times!
Was the separation based on incompatible surfing/domestic habits?
Uh oh chemtrailer alert!