Collins, Sean (1952 – 2011)

Soft-spoken, data-crunching surf forecaster from Long Beach, California; longtime owner of Surfline wave-information service.

Collins was born (1952) in Pasadena, the son of a navy navigator, grew up in Long Beach, and began surfing in the mid-60s. He was interested, like all serious surfers, in weather and wave forecasting. But where others ended their information search with the weather page in the local newspaper or prerecorded lifeguard reports, Collins began synthesizing data from at-se...