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Machrihanish

★★★★★Small
Beach break Faces W all tides Offshore east Best swell west

Best of the week: Thursday around 06:00, 3–4 ft and offshore.

Surf now1–2ft0.6 m at 5 s from the W, wind sea 0.3 m from the SW
Wind11mphSW · cross-on · gusts 18
Tide –Tide times arrive once the Admiralty feed has run. Works all tides.

Seven days

best session each day · swipe
Sat
2–3 ft Swell W 5s Wind 17 mph ★★★★★
Sun
4–6 ft Swell N 4s Wind 22 mph ★★★★★
Mon
2–3 ft Swell NW 6s Wind 20 mph ★★★★★
Tue
1–2 ft Swell E 3s Wind 20 mph ★★★★★
Wed
3–5 ft Swell W 12s Wind 4 mph ★★★★★
Thu
3–4 ft Swell W 12s Wind 12 mph ★★★★★
Sat 14 Sun 15 Mon 16 Tue 17 Wed 18 Thu 19
Time 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 2–3 2–3 2–3 2–3 1–2 2–3 2–3 3–4 4–6 3–4 2–3 2–3 1–2 1–2 1–2 1–2 0–1 0–1 0–1 0–1 2–3 2–4 3–4 3–4 3–5 3–4 3–4 2–4 2–3 2–3
Swell 6s 5s 6s 6s 3s 7s 8s 4s 4s 4s 7s 7s 7s 8s 8s 3s 3s 3s 2s 4s 12s 12s 11s 12s 12s 12s 11s 3s 3s 3s
Wind mph 13 17 17 17 20 13 13 20 23 23 13 8 5 8 18 20 20 18 15 14 4 2 4 4 4 12 13 14 13 12
Tide m – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
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Surf is the face height at the beach after the swell is filtered for the way Machrihanish faces. Arrows point to where the swell and wind come from: an arrow pointing up means from the north. Tide is the height at Machrihanish 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 Tuesday 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

Machrihanish faces west. Measured from the seabed, it is open to swell from SW round to N; 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 WWSW
W
0.6 m at 5 s (swell) · 100 % reaches the beach
SW
0.3 m at 3 s (wind sea) · 63 % reaches the beach

How Machrihanish works

Swell
Best from the west.
Wind
Offshore is from the east; anything with west in it is onshore and messes it up.
Tide
all tides.

Kintyre's long west-facing beach; takes every Atlantic swell going.

Tide times

  • Sat 04:01High
  • Sat 10:32Low
  • Sat 16:03High
  • Sat 22:45Low
  • Sun 04:34High
  • Sun 11:06Low
  • Sun 16:32High
  • Sun 23:20Low

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

Photos

In the gallery
Trig point west of Machrihanish - geograph.org.uk - 8347818 Beach, Machrihanish - geograph.org.uk - 8149552

Gordon Brown, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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