A Swell Sou'Easter

Southeast winds and south coast swell prove the perfect ingredients to fire up Dorset’s finest wave, Kimmeridge, for some rare port tack down the line action. On scene to score it with the lucky locals were Timo Mullen, Andy Chambers and Paul Hunt. They tell us just why it was a day to remember.

- Timo Mullen, Andy Chambers And Paul Hunt

TIMO MULLEN

Since moving to Poole in Dorset nearly 24 years ago, I have had the pleasure of calling Kimmeridge Bay my home spot. Kimmeridge or K-Bay is well known for its amazing windsurfing conditions, epic surf, and stunning scenery. Kimmeridge lies within a World Heritage Site and with its far-reaching views along the spectacular Jurassic Coast, it’s easy to see why Kimmeridge ranks as one of the UK’s most beautiful windsurfing spots.

RARE JEWEL

Kimmeridge faces SW, meaning a SE wind is pretty much side shore port tack, and so can randomly produce epic wave sailing when most other places on the south coast are bolt onshore. Now SE wind is not exactly rare, but a combination of SE wind and a groundswell is! In fact, I reckon in 24 years of sailing at Kimmeridge, I have probably only scored this combination a handful of times, but have been skunked a lot more times than that!

This forecast had been brewing for a while, there had been a really solid few days of swell on the south coast as a stubborn low pressure had parked itself in the Bay of Biscay and wasn’t moving thanks to an equally stubborn high pressure sitting over the UK, providing offshore light easterly winds. The surfing had been pretty epic with some locals calling it the best week of surf they could remember. As the high and low-pressure systems began to try and squeeze each other out, the isobars began to tighten just enough to give a glimmer of hope of some stronger wind. Unfortunately, the margin for error in the wind direction for Kimmeridge is minimal, it has to be bang on SE, too much east and it is too offshore as the wind bends away from the land due to the cliffs, too much south and it is basically onshore!