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Farr Bay

★★★★★Firing
Beach break Faces N all tides Offshore South East Best swell North West

Best of the week: Monday around 13:00, 6–8 ft and offshore.

Surf now3–4ft1.0 m at 11 s from the NW, wind sea 0.3 m from the SE
Wind20mphSE · offshore · gusts 33
Tide 4.3mFalling · low 01:57 (0.9 m). Works all tides.

Seven days

best session each day · swipe
Sat
3–4 ft Swell NW 11s Wind 20 mph ★★★★★
Sun
31–40 ft Swell NW 12s Wind 38 mph ★★★★★
Mon
6–8 ft Swell NW 9s Wind 10 mph ★★★★★
Tue
2–4 ft Swell SW 4s Wind 45 mph ★★★★★
Wed
9–12 ft Swell NW 9s Wind 31 mph ★★★★★
Thu
5–8 ft Swell NW 7s Wind 13 mph ★★★★★
Fri
2–3 ft Swell W 8s Wind 16 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 3–4 5–7 13–17 27–36 32–42 31–40 10–13 8–10 6–9 5–7 4–6 1–2 2–3 1–2 6–9 13–17 8–11 9–12 9–12 7–9 8–11 5–8 5–7 4–6 3–5 2–4 2–3 1–2 1–2 1–2 1–2
Swell 11s 14s 7s 10s 12s 12s 10s 9s 9s 9s 8s 3s 4s 5s 7s 9s 7s 9s 9s 6s 9s 7s 7s 7s 7s 6s 8s 8s 9s 9s 9s
Wind mph 20 24 22 45 42 38 13 9 10 12 27 25 36 48 51 48 38 31 22 30 21 13 8 18 17 18 16 14 13 9 6
Tide m 4.5↓ 4.5↑ 4.1↓ 1.6↓ 2.1↑ 4.8↑ 4.3↑ 4.6↓ 1.9↓ 1.5↑ 4.4↑ 3.8↑ 5.0↓ 2.4↓ 1.0↑ 3.7↑ 3.1↑ 5.1↓ 3.1↓ 1.0↓ 2.8↑ 2.5↑ 4.9↑ 3.8↓ 1.3↓ 2.0↑ 2.2↑ 4.5↑ 4.2↓ 1.9↓ 1.6↑
Rating ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★

Surf is the face height at the beach after the swell is filtered for the way Farr Bay faces. Arrows point to where the swell and wind come from: an arrow pointing up means from the north. Tide is the height at Portnancon 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

Farr Bay faces north. Measured from the seabed, it is open to swell from W round to E; 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 NNWSE
NW
1.0 m at 11 s (swell) · 100 % reaches the beach
SE
0.3 m at 2 s (wind sea) · 2 % reaches the beach

How Farr Bay works

Swell
Best from the north west.
Wind
Offshore is from the south east; anything with north in it is onshore and messes it up.
Tide
all tides.
Getting there
Drive along to north coast road from thurso for about 15-20 miles... you can't miss it.

Swell catching beach break with great lefts at high tide, and Hollow rights at low

Tide times

  • Sun 01:57Low0.9 m
  • Sun 07:11High4.9 m
  • Sun 13:09Low1.3 m
  • Sun 19:16High5.1 m
  • Mon 01:34Low0.8 m
  • Mon 07:44High5.0 m
  • Mon 13:48Low1.1 m
  • Mon 19:52High5.3 m

Portnancon station, 29 km away. Heights above chart datum, UK time.

Photos

In the gallery
Farr Bay looking from Crask

Alan Reid, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Comments

21 Jun 2005 · davey A long-board beach. been going to torrisdale (round the corner) for years which is much better. However,left off the rocks can get quite hollow on low tide, worth a shot.

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