Luke Cederman wants you to know he has not studied meteorology. Photo: The Raglan Surf Report//screenshot
Raglan’s resident surf commentator can’t understand why everyone’s been asking him about the forecast for his home wave’s impending debut on the WSL Championship Tour. “I’m not a meteorologist,” Luke Cederman, creator of the satire series The Raglan Surf Report, bemoaned two days before the event window kicks off in New Zealand.
“It’s not rocket science,” Cederman told The Inertia over the phone. “It’s a left-hand point break. Like, if there are waves, it’ll break on the left-hand point break, and the waves will go left.”
After a few minutes with Cederman, I realized the sarcasm that has entertained surf fans around the globe is no ploy; that’s who he is. But between the jokes, and despite his bitterness for missing out on the event himself, I was able to dig out a few nuggets on the forecast.
“I’ve been looking at it, and it kind of looks like it could be sort of — I hate using the overused word ‘fun’ — but it looks like it could be fun on Friday, maybe shoulder to head high and pretty clean,” Cederman said.
Cederman thinks the waves will back off a bit on Saturday, then pick up on Sunday, albeit with a longer period, and longer lulls.
The freesurf sessions that have inundated social media feeds of late were the result of a big swell that Cederman called “messy.” The contest, he says, will have considerably smaller waves, which is not exactly a bad thing.
“Manu Bay prefers smaller waves because it hugs the point a lot better, and the waves have better shape,” he said.
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After a few “fun” days, the longer range forecast shows the swell dropping a bit, and then possibly a new swell arriving for the end of the window. The WSL, which Cederman says has not yet tapped him for his take on the forecast, will have to decide if the conditions are sufficient to get the event over with quickly, or if they want to call some lay days and hold on for a new swell at the end of the waiting period.
There likely won’t be as many air opportunities aside from the initial section at the top, which will then turn into walls for turns down the point.
As far as who Cederman is picking, he says he hasn’t gotten a good sample size of how everyone is performing because “Italo Ferreira has caught about 80 percent of the waves.” Cederman equates a surf with Ferreira to sharing the lineup with the Energizer Bunny.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Cederman said. “(Italo) is out there hustling, which I can appreciate. But f#%k, it gets a little bit annoying when you’re just trying to chill.”
Based on his limited freesurf observations, Cederman placed his bets on a Brazilian goofy-foot to take the win — Ferreira, Gabriel Medina, Yago Dora, or Miguel Pupo.
“I think the goofy footers might have an advantage, just because they should be able to get a bit more variety than the regular footers,” Cederman said – keeping me guessing what is a joke, and what isn’t.
“Regular footers, they all look the same to me — just doing up and down backhand turns. Nothing amazing,” he concluded. “(They can do) window wipers up and down the whole length of the point. I guess it depends what the judges are after. If they just want monotonous backside surfing, there’ll be a bit of that.”
Cederman said he hopes to get a media pass to report live from the event site, so expect more gold from The Raglan Surf Report soon.
