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History

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Surfline was founded in 1985 as a pay-per-call telephone surf report based on weather, the National Weather Service's buoy data,[1] and telephone reports from young surfers that travelled to beach sites to observe the waves in-person.[1][2][3] Callers heard a 90-second recorded message with information about the size, duration, and angle of waves at 22 California surfing locations.[1][4] Surfline was founded by Southern California surfer Jerry Arnold and in partnership with David Wilk and Craig Masuoka, who had founded the Pro Beach Volleyball Tour.[1][5] adding citation to previously uncited content and adjusting to what the citation says (many sources do list Collins as a cofounder, but the more detailed ones explain he was an employee initially and founded the Surfline.com website later on) Surfline was the first significant use of technology to aid in finding the best surfing conditions.[1][5] Previously, surfers used tips from local surfing stores or friends that live within eye-sight of the beach.[4] At first, Surfline got about 900 calls per-day.[1]

Over 50 surfers were employed to relay dawn surf conditions from their local surf breaks to a central office in Huntington Beach, California, where a special phone system made the reports available to callers for 50 cents each. The telephone number, 976-SURF, became well known in the surfing world. The company received 6,000 calls per day in its first month and grew from there. Surfline's offerings expanded throughout Southern California to Northern California and then into Florida and Texas. Replaced uncited content with similar, but more concise, cited content above

Surfline hired Sean Collins as its chief forecaster in 1984. Collins played a role in Surfline's growth, after he accurately predicted wave conditions in South America a week in advance, while the waves were still six thousand miles away from coastal surfing locations.[4] This forecast also triggered a backlash against Surfline and services like it, for overcrowding beaches with the best waves and taking the search for waves out of the surfing experience.[1][4] However, interest in surf forecasting services like Surfline continued to increase.[4] Collins later left Surfline and started a competing company called Wavetrak, that was merged with Surfline in 1990.[6] Through the merger, Collins became a co-owner of Surfline, then purchased complete ownership in 1990.[1][2][7] Collins helped develop Surfline's early methodologies for predicting surfing conditions, before passing away in 2011.[8][6]

By 1991, Surfline was providing more than one million phone-based surf reports a year.[2] In 1992, it started distributing surf reports via fax and pagers, before moving on to internet-based services.[4][6][8] In 1995 Surfline became an online service, offering live video streams of surf breaks in addition to written surf reports.[9][10] The first live camera feed was created in 1996 at Huntington Beach.[11][1] Around this time, Surfline started doing forecasting work for special events, contests, and surf magazines,[1] as well as lifeguard organizations and government agencies like the U.S. Coast Guard.[6] In March 2000, Surfline was acquired by surf website Swell.com.[10][12][13]

By the early 2000s, Surfline provided data for 37 beaches in California, four in Hawaii, 17 in Florida, and 20 others predominantly on the East Coast. It had 350,000 monthly visitors in 2000[12] and 500,000 by by 2002.[4] By 2002, it had about 15 employees and 30 contract surfers that visit beaches in-person to provide reports on surfing conditions.[11] Surfline developed its own software to predict waves.[10] In 2006, Surfline installed its own buoy system to track waves offshore.[14]

The company started as a call-in service, which provided verbal condition reports for various surf breaks around Southern California.[15] Redundant with same facts stated at the start of the section. Surfline.com was bought up by Swell, Hardcloud and Bluetorch with the hopes of being a “category killer.” They went to Surfer and Surfing magazines to seek out editors, designers, photographers and management. More surfers were becoming more comfortable with going online and Surfline.com was taking advantage of their success by gaining large amounts of money from venture capitalist. The company used that money to improve their data gathering and processing along with surf cams.[4] Filled with editorializing about being a "category killer" and "taking advantage of their success" etc. Doesn't seem to contain any specific historical milestones, except being bought by Swell.com (included above).

A key feature of Surfline's offerings was a daily surf forecast prepared by Sean Collins, a young surfer and sailor who pioneered the art of surf forecasting.[citation needed] Collins' ability to correctly predict the arrival of new swells made a significant impact on surfing. In 1991 Collins bought out Wilk and Masuoka to become a full partner in Surfline and two years later he bought out Arnold to own it outright. Uncited since 2017; replaced with cited paragraph about Collins' contributions above Collins interest in surf forecasting developed out of his own desire for more accurate long-range surf forecasts for Southern California and the Baja California peninsula.[16] This is cited to Collins' own statements in a Q&A interview, rather than those of an independent journalist; plus more relevant to a page on Collins and Collins contributions are covered with properly cited content in the proposed content.

Around 2007, Surfline acquired the website Buoyweather.com. In 2007, Surfline expanded its network of beach cameras and created its first Surfline smartphone apps.[17] This was followed by the acquisition of FishTrack.com in 2012. Fishtrack.com was the Surfline.com equivalent, but for fishing, instead of surfing.[17] In 2017, Surfline acquired Magicseaweed, a United Kingdom-based company founded in 2002 and focused on forecasting surf conditions in more than 200 countries.[17] In 2017, Jeff Berg was appointed CEO, followed by Kyle Laughlin in 2020.[18] In 2020, the company raised $30 million in venture capital funding from The Chernin Group.[18] In 2021, Surfline reworked its wave forecasting engine, incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning.[19] It also advised the 2021 Olympic Committee on anticipated wave conditions at the first olympic surfing competition.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Westwick, P.J.; Neushul, P. (2013). The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing. Crown Publishers. pp. 226–227. ISBN 978-0-307-71948-5. Retrieved May 28, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "Riding a Wave of Success". Los Angeles Times. December 26, 1991. Retrieved May 28, 2022.
  3. ^ Chuang, Tamara (May 31, 2002). "More Web Sites Charge for Content as they Struggle to Make Money". Knight Ridder Tribune.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Warshaw, Matt (April 29, 2011). The History of Surfing. San Francisco, Ca: Chronicle Books. pp. 376–379. ISBN 9780811856003. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  5. ^ a b "Daily Reports Aid Search for Perfect Wave `Surfin' Safari' Now Being Conducted by Phone". The Los Angeles Times. April 28, 1985. p. 5.
  6. ^ a b c d Leibach, Julie (June 11, 2019). "Catching A Break". Science Friday. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  7. ^ "Sean Collins, Trusted Forecaster for Surfers, Dies at 59". The New York Times. December 31, 2011. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  8. ^ a b Thornton, Stuart. "Science of Surfline". National Geographic. Retrieved 2014-05-28.
  9. ^ Joe Haakenson, Costa Mesa Daily Pilot, 04/20/2011, "Before There was Surfline, There were Landlines", Retrieved 05/04/2011
  10. ^ a b c Nast, Condé (April 1, 2001). "Surfer Turf". Wired. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  11. ^ a b Dixon, Chris (June 13, 2002). "A Site for Real Surfers Catches a Wave". The New York Times. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  12. ^ a b Pollack, Michael (August 17, 2000). "Surfing the Web for Sites on the Real Thing". The New York Times. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  13. ^ "Nostrums for the Board Set". WWD. March 9, 2001. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  14. ^ Chuang, Tamara (October 23, 2005). "Surf's Up". Knight Ridder.
  15. ^ Marc Lacey, Los Angeles Times, 12/26/1991, "Riding a Wave of Success", Retrieved 05/04/2011
  16. ^ Damien Hobgood, ESPN, 08/13/2009, "The Man Behind The Weather Map", Retrieved 05/04/2011
  17. ^ a b c Connelly, Laylan (October 3, 2017). "Huntington Beach-based Surfline buys Magicseaweed in UK, adding to forecasting portfolio". Telegram. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  18. ^ a b Lincoln, Ross A. (December 1, 2020). "Chernin Group Invests $30 Million in Surf Data Website Surfline". TheWrap. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
  19. ^ a b Woodruff, Jay (March 8, 2022). "The 10 most innovative companies in sports in 2022". Fast Company. Retrieved June 2, 2022.
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