when is the swell period too short?

Many years ago after we first bought our boat, we launched from hmb to drive out to deep reef for salmon in 7' swells at 7 seconds.  I will never do that again!!!

 Our rule became when the two numbers are roughly the same, stay in bed.  In other words, 5' swells at 5 seconds BAD.  10' swells at 10 seconds BAD.  15 foot swells at 15 seconds BAD

Many years ago after we first bought our boat, we launched from hmb to drive out to deep reef for salmon in 7' swells at 7 seconds.  I will never do that again!!!

 Our rule became when the two numbers are roughly the same, stay in bed.  In other words, 5' swells at 5 seconds BAD.  10' swells at 10 seconds BAD.  15 foot swells at 15 seconds BAD

did you catch anything ?

From April- can't say it any better today:

Think of it as a box.  If a 5" by 5" box of lead weighs 20#, the a 10"X5" box is going to weigh twice as 40#

Now, swing each box on a rope into the side of your wife's car.  Which will make the bigger dent?  they are both only 5" tall, why is that 2d dent so much worse?  Same thing with waves.  10 foot at 20 seconds can be a wave that is only 10 foot high above the surface, but 100 foot wide, in terms of where the wave actually begins and actually ends.

I've always looked at it like this.  There's a storm way out there with wind that generates chop.  The chop becomes directional with the wind pushing; and start to clump up, making wind waves.  These waves are essentially, potential energy, and over a distance will coalesce into each other, and  become more coherent, or "regular." this also creates more distance between each wave peak.  And a longer 'period'

At this point they are on their way, even with no wind blowing.  They are going to travel the deep water which offers little resistance until they reach a bottom shallow enough to drag the bottom of the wave.  Increasing shallow bottom will slow the bottom (under=water) part of the wave enough so the face steepens, angle increases, and the wave breaks.

Here is a short piece that describes it better than I can:

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/yos/resource/JetStream/ocean/waves.htm

Here is an ever better description from surfing POV

http://www.surfline.com/surfology/surfology_forecast2.cfm


Bushy

From April- can't say it any better today:

Think of it as a box.  If a 5" by 5" box of lead weighs 20#, the a 10"X5" box is going to weigh twice as 40#

Now, swing each box on a rope into the side of your wife's car.  Which will make the bigger dent?  they are both only 5" tall, why is that 2d dent so much worse?  Same thing with waves.  10 foot at 20 seconds can be a wave that is only 10 foot high above the surface, but 100 foot wide, in terms of where the wave actually begins and actually ends.



Bushy

Holy crap...that looks like my 8 year Olds common core math homework... me: step 1. Walk to the water...step 2 look at water...step 3 choose from; a-go fishing, b-go back to bed.   I would love to be able to look at the surf tables and know what was waiting for me but I'm not good at it.  I look at wind, surf height and direction.  If everything is single digits I go take a look.

The wind was much nicer this week compared to last week. I got out on the water and had a nice day. I think the swell was forecasted for a shorter period than last week.  Maybe the problem was the wind last time even though there were no whitecaps. I caught a few fish, mostly small.

glad you got out and had a good day on the water. It's all a learning experience on conditions and how it will actually play out - now you have another data point.

Cheers,
Brad