La Gravière (Hossegor) Swell Window
Landes, France · part of the La Gravière (Hossegor) spot guide
- Swell window (from)
- 230°–330° (SW–NNW)
- Best direction
- ~290° (WNW)
- Period sweet spot
- 12–18 s
- Open-ocean height (Hs)
- 4–12 ft
- Resulting faces
- 2–12 ft
Open-ocean vs. the face: the heights on buoys and forecast models are significant wave height (Hs) in deep water. What you ride is the breaking face, which depends on period, direction and this break's bathymetry — that's why the two rows above differ. PierMonkey's spot ratings already do this conversion for you.
La Gravière faces west and is powered by deep North Atlantic groundswell, best from the west to west-northwest around 280–300° straight down the throat of the canyon-fed banks, at period of about 12 to 18 seconds — the longer the period, the heavier the barrel. Because the canyon delivers that energy unfiltered, a given open-ocean height over-performs here.
A modest 4-to-7-foot open-ocean reading at 13 to 16 seconds makes head-high to overhead hollow faces, the classic French Pipeline window; 8 to 12 ft is heavy and serious, dredging closeouts, and much beyond that the beach simply shuts. The face you ride can equal or exceed the open-ocean reading because of the unfiltered delivery — the two numbers behave differently here than at an ordinary beach break.