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This article is about the surf forecasting website. For the railroad line, see Surf Line.
Surfline
Company typePrivate
FoundedSouthern California - 1985
FounderSean Collins
HeadquartersHuntington Beach, California
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Kyle Laughlin (CEO)
Websitesurfline.com

Surfline is a company and website based in Huntington Beach, California that specializes in surf forecasting and surf reports, live webcasting, photography, videography, as well as editorial coverage of the sport of surfing. Surfline.com is now ranked 1,180 in the US and 5,784 in the world in terms of popularity compared to other websites[1] and is now the largest provider of streaming HD coastal cams[citation needed]. Since 2003 it has taken on buoyweather.com[2] and fishtrack.com[3] (2012), on average the family of websites receives 175,000 visitors per day. The site includes streaming video, surf reports and forecasts.[4] Surfline.com offers over 500 streaming cameras[5] at 150 surf breaks,[6] and is one of the larger surf cam websites.[7] Surfline currently has approximately 50 employees.[8]

History

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Surfline was founded in 1985 as a pay-per-call telephone surf report based on weather, the National Weather Service's buoy data,[9] and telephone reports from young surfers that travelled to beach sites to observe the waves in-person.[9][10][11] Callers heard a 90-second recorded message with information about the size, duration, and angle of waves at 22 California surfing locations.[9][12] Surfline was founded by Southern California surfer Jerry Arnold and David Wilk.[9][13] Surfline was the first significant use of technology to aid in finding the best surfing conditions.[9][13] Previously, surfers used tips from local surfing stores or friends that live within eye-sight of the beach.[12] At first, Surfline got about 900 calls per-day.[9]

Surfline hired Sean Collins as its chief forecaster in 1984. Collins played a role in Surfline's growth, after he accurately predicted wave conditions in South America a week in advance, while the waves were still six thousand miles away from coastal surfing locations.[12] This forecast also triggered a backlash against Surfline and services like it, for overcrowding beaches with the best waves and taking the search for waves out of the surfing experience.[9][12] However, interest in surf forecasting services like Surfline continued to increase.[12] Collins later left Surfline and started a competing company called Wavetrak, that was merged with Surfline in 1990.[14] Through the merger, Collins became a co-owner of Surfline, then purchased complete ownership in 1990.[9][10][15] Collins helped develop Surfline's early methodologies for predicting surfing conditions, before passing away in 2011.[16][14]

By 1991, Surfline was providing more than one million phone-based surf reports a year.[10] In 1992, it started distributing surf reports via fax and pagers, before moving on to internet-based services.[12][14][16] In 1995 Surfline became an online service, offering live video streams of surf breaks in addition to written surf reports.[6][17] The first live camera feed was created in 1996 at Huntington Beach.[18][9] Around this time, Surfline started doing forecasting work for special events, contests, and surf magazines,[9] as well as lifeguard organizations and government agencies like the U.S. Coast Guard.[14] In March 2000, Surfline was acquired by surf website Swell.com.[17][19][20]

By the early 2000s, Surfline provided data for 37 beaches in California, four in Hawaii, 17 in Florida, and 20 others predominantly on the East Coast. It had 350,000 monthly visitors in 2000[19] and 500,000 by 2002.[12] By 2002, it had about 15 employees and 30 contract surfers that visit beaches in-person to provide reports on surfing conditions.[18] Surfline developed its own software to predict waves.[17] In 2006, Surfline installed its own buoy system to track waves offshore.[21]

Around 2007, Surfline acquired the website Buoyweather.com. In 2007, Surfline expanded its network of beach cameras and created its first Surfline smartphone apps.[22] This was followed by the acquisition of FishTrack.com in 2012. Fishtrack.com was the Surfline.com equivalent, but for fishing, instead of surfing.[22] In 2017, Surfline acquired Magicseaweed, a United Kingdom-based company founded in 2002 and focused on forecasting surf conditions in more than 200 countries.[22] In 2017, Jeff Berg was appointed CEO, followed by Kyle Laughlin in 2020.[23] In 2020, the company raised $30 million in venture capital funding from The Chernin Group.[23] In 2021, Surfline reworked its wave forecasting engine, incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning.[24] It also advised the 2021 Olympic Committee on anticipated wave conditions at the first olympic surfing competition.[24]

Impacts on Surf Culture

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The introduction of Surfline.com and the increase in reliance on the real time footage has changed surfers' lifestyles.[citation needed] With the advances in the technologies and ability to predict the surfing conditions at various spots it has given surfers the ability to make future plans and make decisions about where to surf or if it's worth it to go anywhere. It used to be that surfers relied on word of mouth, seasonal tendencies or tides to know what the surf was going to be like. Some would take days off from work based on this unreliable information and then be disappointed when there were no waves that day or there would be days where the surf was ideal and surfers would miss it altogether. Surfer magazine’s editor Brendon Thomas has said in response to this shift, “I’m not saying that’s necessarily a good thing, but it’s true.” [16] Another aspect of Surf Culture that is seeing some controversy is dealing with new crowds. There is a strong “Locals Only” mentality in different surf spots around the world. Surfers have blamed Surfline.com and live surf reporting as a contributor to the increase of crowds at surf breaks. The locals were so upset that there was suspicion that some of the surfers in New Jersey even planned to get back by hiding and/or breaking the camera.[25]

References

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  1. ^ "Competitive Intelligence". Alexa. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  2. ^ "Buoyweather - Accurate Marine Weather Forecasts". www.buoyweather.com.
  3. ^ "Deep Sea Fishing Features and Charts - FISHTRACK.COM". www.fishtrack.com.
  4. ^ "About Surfline". Surfline. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  5. ^ "Surfline Ramps Up Global Surf Cam Network". Surfline.
  6. ^ a b Joe Haakenson, Costa Mesa Daily Pilot, 04/20/2011, "Before There was Surfline, There were Landlines", Retrieved 05/04/2011
  7. ^ Corey Kilgannon, New York Times, 01/27/2008, "Cameras Show if Surf Is Good, but Surfers Are Getting in Way ", Retrieved 05/04/2011
  8. ^ Apple Business Profiles, 2010, "Surfline: Catching waves in the palm of the hand.", Retrieved 05/04/2011
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Westwick, P.J.; Neushul, P. (2013). The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing. Crown Publishers. pp. 226–227. ISBN 978-0-307-71948-5. Retrieved May 28, 2022.
  10. ^ a b c "Riding a Wave of Success". Los Angeles Times. December 26, 1991. Retrieved May 28, 2022.
  11. ^ Chuang, Tamara (May 31, 2002). "More Web Sites Charge for Content as they Struggle to Make Money". Knight Ridder Tribune.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Warshaw, Matt (April 29, 2011). The History of Surfing. San Francisco, Ca: Chronicle Books. pp. 376–379. ISBN 9780811856003. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  13. ^ a b "Daily Reports Aid Search for Perfect Wave 'Surfin' Safari' Now Being Conducted by Phone". The Los Angeles Times. April 28, 1985. p. 5.
  14. ^ a b c d Leibach, Julie (June 11, 2019). "Catching A Break". Science Friday. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  15. ^ "Sean Collins, Trusted Forecaster for Surfers, Dies at 59". The New York Times. December 31, 2011. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  16. ^ a b c Thornton, Stuart. "Science of Surfline". National Geographic. Archived from the original on October 26, 2012. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  17. ^ a b c "Surfer Turf". Wired. April 1, 2001. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  18. ^ a b Dixon, Chris (June 13, 2002). "A Site for Real Surfers Catches a Wave". The New York Times. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  19. ^ a b Pollack, Michael (August 17, 2000). "Surfing the Web for Sites on the Real Thing". The New York Times. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  20. ^ "Nostrums for the Board Set". WWD. March 9, 2001. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  21. ^ Chuang, Tamara (October 23, 2005). "Surf's Up". Knight Ridder.
  22. ^ a b c Connelly, Laylan (October 3, 2017). "Huntington Beach-based Surfline buys Magicseaweed in UK, adding to forecasting portfolio". Telegram. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  23. ^ a b Lincoln, Ross A. (December 1, 2020). "Chernin Group Invests $30 Million in Surf Data Website Surfline". TheWrap. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  24. ^ a b Woodruff, Jay (March 8, 2022). "The 10 most innovative companies in sports in 2022". Fast Company. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  25. ^ Kilgannon, Corey (27 January 2008). "Cameras Show if Surf Is Good, but Surfers Are Getting in Way". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
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