Home / Devon / north devon

Woolacombe

★★★★★Small
Beach break Faces W low tide Offshore east Best swell west

Best of the week: Thursday around 15:00, 2–4 ft and cross-off.

Surf now16–22ftwind sea 5.9 m from the W
Wind30mphW · onshore · gusts 49
Tide 6.9mFalling · low 23:40 (1.3 m). Works low tide.

Live webcam

Woolacombe Bay Hotel

Open the Woolacombe cam by Woolacombe Bay Hotel. Opens in a new tab.

Seven days

best session each day · swipe
Sat
16–22 ft Swell W 9s Wind 30 mph ★★★★★
Sun
17–22 ft Swell W 9s Wind 33 mph ★★★★★
Mon
4–6 ft Swell SW 5s Wind 26 mph ★★★★★
Tue
12–16 ft Swell W 12s Wind 26 mph ★★★★★
Wed
6–8 ft Swell W 5s Wind 20 mph ★★★★★
Thu
2–4 ft Swell W 8s Wind 15 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 19 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 16–22 17–22 15–20 14–18 11–14 9–12 4–6 4–5 8–10 8–10 8–11 12–16 9–13 8–11 10–13 10–13 7–9 6–9 6–8 6–9 6–8 3–5 3–5 3–4 2–4 2–3 2–3 2–3 2–3 2–3 2–3
Swell 9s 9s 9s 9s 8s 10s 8s 8s 7s 6s 9s 12s 7s 7s 8s 7s 6s 6s 5s 9s 9s 9s 8s 8s 8s 8s 8s 8s 8s 8s 9s
Wind mph 30 33 28 27 22 19 20 20 26 24 21 26 24 29 25 24 22 20 19 16 11 9 10 17 15 19 16 16 16 16 15
Tide m 7.9↓ 8.3↓ 3.1↓ 1.8↑ 7.0↑ 8.9↓ 9.1↓ 4.2↓ 1.1↑ 5.7↑ 9.5↓ 9.4↑ 5.6↓ 0.9↓ 4.3↑ 9.3↑ 9.0↑ 7.1↓ 1.4↓ 3.0↑ 8.6↑ 8.1↑ 8.2↓ 2.5↓ 2.1↑ 7.3↑ 6.8↑ 8.6↓ 4.0↓ 1.9↑ 5.8↑
Rating ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★

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

Woolacombe faces west. Measured from the seabed, it is open to swell from SW round to NW; 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 WW
W
5.9 m at 9 s (wind sea) · 100 % reaches the beach

How Woolacombe works

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

beach break

Tide times

  • Sat 23:40Low1.3 m
  • Sun 04:57High8.9 m
  • Sun 10:57Low1.2 m
  • Sun 17:16High9.2 m
  • Sun 23:17Low1.0 m
  • Mon 05:35High9.2 m
  • Mon 11:35Low1.0 m
  • Mon 17:56High9.5 m

Ilfracombe station, 8 km away. Heights above chart datum, UK time.

Photos

In the gallery
Surfers, Woolacombe Beach - geograph.org.uk - 6011362 Lone Surfer at Woolacombe Beach - geograph.org.uk - 2860752

Ian Capper, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Tom Jolliffe, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Comments

24 Sep 2005 · shizzles when its good, its works a treat, but for the rest of te time its just an overcrowded mush of a wave. mish on round to croyde.
1 Jul 2005 · andyo screw u all! englsnd kicks ass, ur just jealous that we are surrounded by good suring sea!
24 Mar 2005 · goofless avoid the north end. i got hit in the fave with a mini-mal. lost my two front teeth.
3 Feb 2005 · chris w too many grocs in the summer and waves rarely keep there shape in the winter. good local break but i wouldnt travel to far to get to it when you could go to croyde.
3 Feb 2005 · old rich how can you say that chris this is a clasic site which has been loyal to me for 30 years
3 Feb 2005 · mark i dont get you english dudes. surfing all winter in a freezeing mess of ice cold atlantic swell. hats of to you. whenever ive been it was messy
3 Feb 2005 · cj why would you surf her when croydes jus around the headland?
3 Feb 2005 · a combe local wollacombe is always tekeing knocks from surfers but really it aint that bad

Log in or join to comment.

Nearby