A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Surf report and forecasting company launched in 1985 by Southern Californians Jerry Arnold, David Wilke, and Craig Masuoka; home to surfing's biggest and most-visited website.

Surfline began as a Los Angeles-area pay-per-call phone service (213-976-SURF; 55 cents per local call), utilizing California's newly approved 976 customer-toll numbers. Surfers looking for wave reports had previously either called a surf shop near the break they were interested in (hoping the shop clerks wouldn't lay bogus information on them) or called a recorded message—often outdated—at the local lifeguard headquarters.

Surfline soon hired Sean Collins, an Orange County wave forecasting guru. Collins, in turn, put together a freelance network of on-the-beach surfers, who relayed information on wave height, swell period and direction, weather conditions, and crowds. Surfline employees blended this eyewitness data with what they already knew about current swell direction, swell interval, water temperature, and tides, then digitally recorded a series of beach-by-beach messages that callers accessed by punching keys on their touch-tone phone. The morning report was posted 15 minutes after sunrise, the afternoon report at 2:15. Digital recording hardware allowed Surfline to field hundreds of calls at once.

Surfline also offered a three-day forecast, as determined by Sean Collins, the self-taught surfing meteorologist who used satellite photos and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) millibar charts, among other sources, to make consistently accurate surf predictions. Surfline was an instant hit, and by 1987 it was covering all major surfing areas from the Mexican border to Santa Cruz.

Collins left the company that year to form Wavetrak, his own pay-per-call service, but in 1991 the two businesses merged, and in 1998 he bought the combined operation. A 

 article on Collins that year reported that Surfline was receiving one million calls annually. Similar report-forecasting companies, meanwhile, had come and gone, including 976-WAVE, 900-PRO-SURF, and 900-HOT-SURF. Surfax offered a twist on Surfline's service by faxing daily forecast information to subscribers. Surfline countered with Wavefax. In 1995, the company launched Surf Alert, a pay service that beeped pager-equipped surfers when the waves were about to turn on in a predesignated county.

In late 1997, two years after going online, Surfline began using stream live footage from strategically placed video cameras at Pipeline and Huntington Beach; the number of webcams quickly multiplied. Many surfers saw the cameras as an invasion of privacy, while a lesser number viewed professional surf reporting-forecasting in general as a crutch. "They really serve the rich and unimaginative," as San Francisco big-wave surfer Mark Renneker phrased it. But there was no doubt that surf forecasting would only expand in years to come.

In 2000, when Swell.com bought Surfline (Collins stayed on as president and Chief Weather Officer, overseeing 10 full-time Surfline employees), the number of Surfline website users was doubling every nine months. By 2001 that meant about a half-million individual visits per week. Surfline broke away from Swell.com during the Internet bust of 2001, and Collins once again became part owner of the company.

In 2005 Surfline added daily editorial content in a bid to become the go-to website for surf news around the world; some of the best-known writers in the sport have contributed to the site, including Derek Rielly, Nick Carroll, and Sam George. Former Surfing editor Dave Gilovich is Surfline's executive vice-president and editor

2009 saw the release of a Surfline app for the iPhone, as well as the introduction of HD technology to its surf cams. By 2012 two million users logged on to the website each month.

The company was shaken in December 2011 when Collins died suddenly of a heart attack while playing tennis near his Orange County home.

Surfline

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

The Sunday Joint

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

The Sunday Joint