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Bournemouth Pier

★★★★★Small
Faces S low to mid tide Offshore North Best swell South West
Surf now3–5ft0.1 m at 11 s from the S, wind sea 3.2 m from the SW
Wind24mphSW · cross-on · gusts 50
Tide 2.1mFalling · low 02:24 (0.6 m). Works low to mid tide.

Live webcam

Wetsuit Centre

Open the Bournemouth cam by Wetsuit Centre. Opens in a new tab.

Seven days

best session each day · swipe
Sat
3–5 ft Swell SW 9s Wind 24 mph ★★★★★
Sun
2–3 ft Swell SW 9s Wind 15 mph ★★★★★
Mon
3–4 ft Swell SW 6s Wind 18 mph ★★★★★
Tue
4–6 ft Swell S 8s Wind 19 mph ★★★★★
Wed
1–2 ft Swell W 4s Wind 13 mph ★★★★★
Thu
0–1 ft Swell SW 5s Wind 3 mph ★★★★★
Fri
1–2 ft Swell SE 3s Wind 11 mph ★★★★★
Sat 24 Sun 25 Mon 26 Tue 27 Wed 28 Thu 29 Fri 30
Time 21 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18 06 09 12 15 18
Surf ft 3–5 2–4 2–3 1–2 1–2 1–2 1–2 3–5 3–5 3–4 2–3 2–4 3–5 3–5 3–4 2–4 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 1–2 1–2 1–2 1–2 1–2
Swell 9s 9s 9s 9s 9s 9s 4s 5s 6s 6s 6s 6s 9s 9s 9s 9s 4s 4s 4s 4s 4s 5s 5s 5s 6s 5s 2s 3s 3s 3s 3s
Wind mph 24 14 15 19 12 11 14 19 17 18 19 22 15 15 15 12 14 13 13 11 8 3 3 11 11 8 10 11 11 10 9
Tide m 2.2↓ 1.8↑ 2.2↓ 1.2↓ 0.7↑ 1.8↑ 1.6↑ 2.3↓ 1.4↓ 0.6↓ 1.4↑ 1.2↑ 2.4↑ 1.7↓ 0.6↓ 1.0↑ 0.9↑ 2.3↑ 2.0↓ 0.8↓ 0.7↑ 0.8↑ 2.0↑ 2.1↓ 1.1↓ 0.6↑ 0.9↑ 1.7↑ 2.1↓ 1.4↓ 0.7↓
Rating ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★

Surf is the face height at the beach after the swell is filtered for the way Bournemouth Pier faces. Arrows point to where the swell and wind come from: an arrow pointing up means from the north. Tide is the height at Bournemouth above chart datum, rising ↑ or falling ↓; the rating drops when the tide is outside the window this break works on. Amber marks the sessions worth setting an alarm for. From Wednesday the swell comes from Météo-France's 10-day model, which is coarser than the 5 km German model used close in. Hours no model reaches are left blank, not shown as flat.

Exposure

Bournemouth Pier faces south. Measured from the seabed, it is open to swell from E round to SW; the brighter a wedge, the deeper the water in that direction and the more of the swell gets in. Anything from behind the headlands scores nothing, however big the buoy says it is.

NESWfaces SSSW
S
0.1 m at 11 s (swell) · 81 % reaches the beach
SW
3.2 m at 9 s (wind sea) · 42 % reaches the beach

How Bournemouth Pier works

Swell
Best from the south west.
Wind
Offshore is from the north; anything with south in it is onshore and messes it up.
Tide
low to mid tide.

Can have nice lefts and rights... but works well rarely... has one saving advantage of when it's onshore but big, you can save yourself the paddle out by jumping the pier..

Tide times

  • Sat 20:28High2.2 m
  • Sun 02:24Low0.6 m
  • Sun 07:52High2.3 m
  • Sun 14:45Low0.7 m
  • Sun 20:08High2.3 m
  • Mon 03:03Low0.5 m
  • Mon 08:28High2.4 m
  • Mon 15:25Low0.5 m

Bournemouth station, under 1 km away. Heights above chart datum, UK time.

Photos

In the gallery
Beach to east of pier - geograph.org.uk - 3972563 View of cliffs from the beach, looking through the pier - geograph.org.uk - 1918880

Kim Fyson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Robert Lamb, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Comments

1 Jan 2010 · eightlegged Shitty locals, crap wave.. If you have to surf here Move!!
25 Apr 2005 · roofandwalls There can be few things in life that are more tragic than the Bournemouth surf 'scene'
23 Jan 2005 · spongebob it may not be great, but when it works its alota fun, even pipeline needs swell, watch those charts and go surf, ps DO NOT JUMP THE PIER!

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