da Surf Engine app kills the one-size-fits all approach to surf conditions. Photo: The Inertia
Editor’s Note: Download da Surf Engine App here.
The surf report has changed astronomically over the years. 1-800 lines with recorded morning and afternoon reports from the local surf shop were a big thing before a surf cam was installed at the top of every other point break on the planet. And somehow, in the past decade, that report has more or less been reduced to a generic measurement of size (“3-4 feet. Occasional 5…) and an arbitrary color coding to signify the quality of the conditions. Helpful, sure. But convenience and simplicity have definitely hindered the average surfer’s understanding of how to find good surf.
I cringe when friends can’t figure out how to tell me how good the surf was the other day beyond something like “5-7 feet!” and whatever generic one sentence description they got from the forecast that morning. And I realize that for somebody either brand new to an area or just beginning to surf altogether, the status quo for surf reports and forecasts isn’t actually that helpful.
These are challenges a mobile app called da Surf Engine attempts to solve. We all like our waves different, and there’s really no one-size-fits-all way to figure that out. So users are able to surf waves by different criteria like wave direction or normal lengths of rides, what the paddle out to the line up is like, the expected crowd level, and more. Altogether, there are more than 20 different criteria on the app right now for finding a more detailed description of waves near you or even ones you’ve been thinking about rolling the dice on taking a drive to.
Screenshots from da Surf Engine app.
These are the main components of the app developed by Jennifer Curless, a surfer who built it because she realized she didn’t have anything like it available in her own search for waves she’d enjoy.
“If you look on Reddit, Quora, etc., you’ll often find people asking questions about what spot to surf based on their skill level and board type and other items, therefore I saw the need for answers to these types of questions and believe the filtering function of my app could be another valuable tool surfers could use to answer those types of questions,” she says.
Curless acknowledged that what might be a great wave for one person isn’t always a great wave to the next, and her app is essentially a tool for building your own personal list of waves you love or hope to someday travel to. Features like the “Sand Bucket List” allow users to keep notes of their own and share information with other users about those specific details of a wave we’ve all let go in the standard 3-5 day mobile forecasting apps. There is a comments section on the surf spot page, where users can leave tips and suggestions for surfing that spot for other users. And for the social media savvy, the app is also designed as a social network. The “Surf Buddy” features offer a way to engage with other users based on a lot of the same criteria for finding waves: experience level, surf frequency, what time of day you typically surf, and more.
“I really just wanted people to be able to look for surf buddies that are truly on the same wavelength,” Curless says, pointing out that she’s met a lot of surfers near her in San Diego who tend to surf on opposite schedules from her own. And so she envisioned the “Surf Buddy” network as a remedy to that once more users start engaging and using the app.
As for using the app itself, in my experience, there’s a little bit of a learning curve. With an extenisve set of criteria to choose from for different wave types, what kind of board I’ll be surfing on a given day, and my location, there is a lot to process. That said, I suppose that’s precisely the issue the app is hoping to solve: a bit more specificity to match a surfer’s desires on any given day. In that sense, it’s successful, and I imagine with a little bit of familiarity and patience I’ll be able to build up a pretty detailed list of waves I love and can experience firsthand when the stars align.
You can download da Surf Engine App to check out for yourself here.
