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Farr Bay

★★★★★Firing
Beach break Faces N all tides Offshore South East Best swell North West

Best of the week: Thursday around 08:00, 5–7 ft and offshore.

Surf now4–6ft1.7 m at 9 s from the NW, wind sea 0.2 m from the SW
Wind7mphS · offshore · gusts 11
Tide 4.1mRising · high 06:46 (4.5 m). Works all tides.

Seven days

best session each day · swipe
Wed
4–6 ft Swell NW 9s Wind 8 mph ★★★★★
Thu
5–7 ft Swell NW 9s Wind 7 mph ★★★★★
Fri
4–6 ft Swell NW 8s Wind 30 mph ★★★★★
Sat
6–8 ft Swell W 10s Wind 35 mph ★★★★★
Sun
4–6 ft Swell W 7s Wind 6 mph ★★★★★
Mon
3–4 ft Swell N 7s Wind 23 mph ★★★★★
Tue
3–5 ft Swell W 10s Wind 6 mph ★★★★★
Wed 7 Thu 8 Fri 9 Sat 10 Sun 11 Mon 12 Tue 13
Time 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 06 09 12 15 18
Surf ft 4–6 4–6 5–6 5–7 5–7 5–7 5–6 4–6 4–6 4–6 2–4 2–3 4–5 4–6 4–6 4–5 6–8 7–9 7–10 7–9 5–7 5–7 5–7 5–7 4–6 3–4 3–4 2–4 2–3 2–3 1–2 1–2 2–3 3–5 3–5
Swell 9s 9s 9s 9s 9s 9s 9s 9s 9s 9s 4s 5s 5s 8s 9s 8s 10s 10s 10s 10s 8s 8s 8s 7s 7s 7s 7s 7s 7s 7s 7s 8s 9s 10s 11s
Wind mph 8 8 10 19 7 8 7 7 7 7 31 32 30 29 27 36 35 32 35 39 24 20 15 10 3 23 20 24 23 22 16 17 15 6 14
Tide m 4.4↑ 3.7↓ 2.1↓ 2.9↑ 4.7↑ 4.3↑ 4.3↓ 2.1↓ 2.3↑ 4.6↑ 3.9↑ 4.7↓ 2.3↓ 1.7↑ 4.2↑ 3.4↑ 4.9↓ 2.7↓ 1.3↑ 3.6↑ 2.8↑ 5.0↑ 3.2↓ 1.2↓ 3.0↑ 2.3↑ 4.9↑ 3.7↓ 1.4↓ 2.4↑ 2.0↑ 4.6↑ 4.1↓ 1.7↓ 2.0↑
Rating ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★ ★★★★★

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

Farr Bay faces north. Measured from the seabed, it is open to swell from W round to E; 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 NNWSW
NW
1.7 m at 9 s (swell) · 100 % reaches the beach
SW
0.2 m at 2 s (wind sea) · 22 % reaches the beach

How Farr Bay works

Swell
Best from the north west.
Wind
Offshore is from the south east; anything with north in it is onshore and messes it up.
Tide
all tides.
Getting there
Drive along to north coast road from thurso for about 15-20 miles... you can't miss it.

Swell catching beach break with great lefts at high tide, and Hollow rights at low

Tide times

  • Wed 06:46High4.5 m
  • Wed 12:41Low2.0 m
  • Wed 18:49High4.8 m
  • Thu 01:12Low1.0 m
  • Thu 07:27High4.7 m
  • Thu 13:22Low1.7 m
  • Thu 19:32High5.1 m
  • Fri 01:52Low0.8 m

Portnancon station, 29 km away. Heights above chart datum, UK time.

Photos

In the gallery
Farr Bay looking from Crask

Alan Reid, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Comments

21 Jun 2005 · davey A long-board beach. been going to torrisdale (round the corner) for years which is much better. However,left off the rocks can get quite hollow on low tide, worth a shot.

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