Steve, as Craig said, that system's not particularly well aligned towards Tahiti. You need a rather incredible fetch in that part of the world to generate sizeable waves for Teahupoo.

Ironically, there is a potentially good long range swell expected to develop in Tahiti's distant window - near Heard Island - during the middle of next week (Aug 24/24). Unfortunately, there's around ten days travel time from there to Tahtiti (give or take), which means that it'd probably arrive a day or two after the waiting period.

In previous (poor swell) years, despite the overall unfavourable storm track for Tahiti, there was always the odd flukey swell visible in the forecast that had the potential to deliver a random day of decent waves. And if not a classic south-west swell, then there have been other options - last year for example, if I recall correctly - had a stationary trough parked SE of Tahiti that generated an unusual SE swell for the region, that Slater took full advantage of at a nearby island (remember that right?).

This year, we've got nothing of the kind. The swell from the storm you mentioned Steve is due next Fri (Aust time, Thurs Tahiti time), but I can't see it amounting to much more than an occasional 3ft set every twenty-five minutes.

Other than that, we can only hope the computer models undergo some radical changes in the next couple of days. Otherwise, it's going to be a forgettable Tahitian event.

We're another day closer to the event, and the long term forecast remains the same.. still no signs of any major swells for Tahiti for the entire waiting period.

In fact, we may see a small westerly swell towards the end of the period, thanks to strong frontal activity pushing through the Tasman during the middle to latter part of the coming week. But, westerly swells are a tricky proposition at Teahupoo, and there probably won't be much size either.

Otherwise, I get the feeling that we'll see a decent-sized mid latitude low developing east of New Zealand around Aug 31/Sep 1. If this low generates a swell for Tahiti, it may very well arrive to late to be of benefit to the event (although, cut off lows in this neck of the woods are often aimed more towards Fiji/Tonga than Tahiti, so it may not be of use anyway).

If a potential post-waiting period swell does appear on the charts, I wonder if the ASP will consider extending the waiting period?

Running competitions from boats is very difficult aitch - been there before - and webcasting is even more difficult (for technical reasons I won't go into). BTW, the setup at Cloudbreak is/was identical to Teahupoo.. judging from a tower on the reef, support from boats in the channel. Only main difference is the distance from 'shore' is greater in Fiji.

This year though, even the right's not going to be worthwhile.. being mobile probably won't offer much relied from the lack of swell.

Another day, another model run update - and still no signs of any major swells for the entire waiting period.

No backup locations Don - it's Teahupoo or bust.

Saw that Don.. although unfortunately it's not really showing up in the local 12Z bulletin. Personally, I can't see much size eventuating in Tahiti from it, but in the absence of a true Tahitian swell pattern, it's certainly worth keeping a close eye on in case the models develop it further over the coming days. This is a possibility.

There's also a stationary polar low modeled to be near 130W on Friday that'll kick up a small S/SE swell for Tahiti around Tues (our time), but I can't see much in it either.

Interesting too - I've been speaking to a few people on site over the last week or so, and the general feeling (given the poor forecast) was that they'd do everything they could to run today and/or tomorrow, just to get some of the comp out of the way. Reason being, is that today was meant to offer one of the bigger days of the forecast period. But even then it was still too small!

Looks like there won't be any surfing until Fri (our time) when the next long range SW groundswell is due to arrive. Even then we'll be extremely lucky to see much more than a stray 2-3ft set every twenty minutes.

Jeez, the GFS model is jumping around markedly. In the space of one model update (06Z to 12Z), it's wound back Don's polar low, and moved the polar low I mentioned above at 130W, to now be too far east to be of any benefit to Tahiti.

Additionally, GFS has spun up a potentially good S/SE swell generating mid-latitude low near 138W, 44S on Monday (EC is also inline with the broadscale pattern, which is encouraging).

If this eventuated we'd potentially see good waves on the last two days of the waiting period - nothing huge but probably somewhere around 4-6ft.

But.. given the wild swings in the model runs over the last few days I'd keep all optimism at bay for the time being.

Nah, it's a different low - initially the models were propagating the feature in the Tasman over New Zealand, and then reintensifying it in the South Pacific (but unfavourably for Tahiti). The models are now stalling the Tasman system near NZ and spinning up a new low well to the S/SE of Fiji.

It wasn't there on this morning's 06Z run (when I checked at 5am) but appeared in the 12Z run update. I don't think 18Z is available yet.

As a rule, I usually ignore 06Z and 18Z anyway (couldn't wait at dawn this morning though!). I reckon I'll leave it until 00Z before assessing this distant swell source, and then reassess again with tomorrow morning's 12Z.

In any case, if this speculated system diminishes away, we'll certainly be looking at scraps from start to finish for the Billabong Pro. How disappointing.

Latest model run seems to have changed the dynamics of the low, and have majorly downgraded its swell generating potential. And so disappears the last glimmer of hope for a swell bigger than 3ft at Teahupoo this year.

The cut off low looks too small for me Don. Cut off lows really need to be quite big in order to generate anything notable - there's 3600km between the fetch core (Mon arvo) and Tahiti, which is a very large distance (and therefore large degree of wave decay).

Actually, there's a new development in the latest GFS run - an interesting polar low/front is expected to develop south of NZ on Monday, before merging with the aforementioned cut-off low on Tuesday, and current progs would suggest a good groundswell for the last day of the waiting period. Won't be huge but 4-5ft+ sets are a possibility. Well worth watching.

Re: smaller fetch developing SW of Tahiti this weekend - there's not a lot of substance in the swell window IMO. The actual fetch length is only small, winds strengths are comparatively weak, and any resulting swell would probably be from the W/SW. It may kick up wave heights to 3-4ft but I can't see it producing anything interesting at Teahupoo - it'll effectively be a weak, peaky windswell, should peak Monday afternoon (Aust time). In my eyes, at a reef break like Teahupoo I'd prefer a smaller long period swell than a slightly larger short period swell.

Anyway, it's good to finally see some activity in the models - at least it gives us something to check back on tomorrow!

E'ly winds are fine at Teahupoo Don.

Gut feel tells me they'll do everything they can to get a day under the belt tomorrow. Saturday will be a non-event, Sunday's a possibility depending on the timing of the new low period swell, Monday will probably be a contestable day.

Hopefully this will then leave them with a markedly reduced number of heats left to run through to finish the event over the last couple of days of the waiting period.

bindy, right now it seems that they'll be happy if there's a rideable wave at the contest site, let alone the privilege of being able to choose between individual days. What a tragedy!

I agree that they should have a backup location bindy.

But, it's impossible to have an ASP World Tour event on standby for much more than a couple of weeks - the two weeks already in place for each event is very expensive. Two months would be logistically impossible.

Sure, forecasting is accurate but it's all relative - for example, right now they'd kill for a clean 4ft swell. But.. if we had a theoretical two month waiting period, where would you set the threshold to press the green light? 6ft.. 8ft.. 10ft? What if you went for two months without any swells above 6ft.. would you hold the event in the first 4ft swell just to make sure it gets run? I know that lengthy periods of small swells are unlikely at places like Tahiti during the prime swell season, but it is still very possible.

At the end of the day, they have to roll the dice with their choice of locations and time of year, and unfortunately Tahiti has drawn the short straw for what now appears to be the sixth consecutive year.

Are there any solutions to the situation? I don't think there are. Personally, my call would be to soldier on and run it again next year. We know how great this event can be, and basic statistics show that their poor run of waves is well overdue.

As for moving the event to coincide with theoretically better swell chances - as long as they keep it in the climatological higher swell months between April and September, I don't think there's any merit whatsoever in targeting a particular two week time frame in order to guarantee better waves. Nothing is assured in such a small window of opportunity.

The long range forecast looks pretty average for Teahupoo IMO Don - cut off lows might provide a half a day of OK waves, but essentially, in order to see a classic Tahiti swell worth extending the waiting period for, we need the jet stream to be in position (which it's not, and not expected to for some time either).

Anyway, where would you draw the line at extending the waiting period? One extra day past the waiting period, or two days, or a week, or a fortnight? There's a lot of staff at these events who have other jobs and commitments to attend to after the event, flights to be changed, accommodation needs to be extended.. just on the hope that a swell materialises at some point beyond the waiting period.

In any case, it's also just a part of competitive surfing too - the best surfer in all conditions, and all that. If we were completely flexible for every event on the ASP calendar, each competition would have overlapping waiting periods and nothing would ever get done. I don't see any reason why we should make excuses for Teahupoo - we haven't for any other event. Bells had to move to 13th Beach, Winkipop and Johanna to get run this year, rather than waiting for a classic Bells swell.

It's such a shame.. I was really looking forward to the return of some thundering barrels for this year's event. But it wasn't to be... I reckon it'll just make everyone hungrier for 2011.

Bindy, I can't see where their optimism is coming from. Sure.. there are a few sources of new swell on the cards for the coming week (bigger than what we've seen this week), but in all honesty, Teahupoo just isn't that interesting to watch unless the swell is a quality long range event, at least 4-6ft. But, that's just my opinion.

Why are there no ASP events in Indonesia? Not really sure. It comes down to the event licensees, and where they want to spend their money - and with a declining economy in recent years, there hasn't been much money to spend on new events. I spoke to someone high up at Quiksilver four or five years ago, who told me they were looking to get G'land back on the map the following year. That didn't eventuate, but it's still being rumoured... so maybe we'll see something in the next year or two.

Also re: your comment "..they monitor the forecasts over that two month period, and when they see good conditions a week or so away, they contact all competitors and then get the event started" - this brings up a whole range of ethical issues.

Should a large surf company be able to lock down one of the world's best surf breaks for as long as they like, so that they can cherry pick the best swells and exclude the local surfers (and/or travellers) from surfing?

A good example was the Rip Curl Pro in Bali a few years back - with the location being withheld from the general public until the event was live, no-one knew where it was. I heard a story where some surfers had coincidentally booked their annual two week holiday to Uluwatu during the same two week period of the event. They were pretty unimpressed to arrive in Bali, only to find fifty of the world's best surfers, plus another two hundred and fifty event staff, managers and international media jostling for waves. They also weren't very pleased to find that they weren't allowed to surf out the front of their accommodation whenever the contest was being run.

This is just the tip of the iceberg - there are a lot of other things to think about. The staffing requirements for each event is enormous.. extending the event waiting period from two weeks to two months could potentially quadruple the running costs.

Seeing that most two week periods usually have three good days of waves, I'd be more inclined to write off this year's event (again!) and just steam ahead with the competition next year.

Yes - the storm track looks like it's going to reorganise itself underneath New Zealand this Thurs/Fri (our time), but we won't see any swell from this until the early/middle part of next week. Five days too late.