How it ended

Magicseaweed launched in 2002, founded by Mat Arney and Ben Freeston out of Cornwall. Over the next decade it grew into the dominant UK surf forecast site, with a loyal community built around its forums, photo uploads, and slightly chaotic but very functional spot pages.

In 2017, Magicseaweed was acquired by the US-based surf forecasting company Surfline. For a few years nothing visibly changed. Then in October 2023 the site quietly went offline. The forums, the photo galleries, the spot pages, all of it. Type magicseaweed.com today and you get redirected to Surfline.

Why people are still searching for MSW

Habit, mostly. Most British surfers spent over a decade typing "magicseaweed [their spot]" into Google before every session. That muscle memory is taking a long time to fade. Even now, there are thousands of monthly searches in the UK for MSW pages that no longer exist.

There's also a real frustration with what replaced it. Surfline's full forecasts sit behind a paywall, around £8 a month. The site is built primarily for the US market, so the UK feels secondary. The community is gone with no equivalent. And the feel of MSW, the quirky-but-functional vibe surfers liked, didn't carry over.

Free alternatives worth trying

There's no perfect like-for-like replacement, but a handful of sites cover similar ground.

Surfline is technically what MSW became. The free tier shows basic current conditions. Multi-day forecasts and detailed reports require Surfline Premium. Fine if you don't mind paying, or you mostly want the headline wave height.

Surf-Forecast.com has been running for years and covers thousands of spots globally. The interface feels dated and ads are heavy, but the core data is free.

Windy is a weather tool with an excellent wave model layer. More useful for planning a week ahead than checking conditions this morning, but really good at what it does.

MysticSwell, the site you're on, is a free UK-only surf forecast covering 32 spots from Cornwall up to Scotland. It blends multiple forecast models (GFS Wave for global swell, CMEMS for European regional waters) rather than relying on a single source. The whole thing is built mobile-first, because surfers check forecasts on their phones at the beach, not on desktops.

Spots people still search for

These are the UK breaks that get the most "Magicseaweed [spot]" searches each month. We have live forecasts for all of them.

Fistral BeachNewquay, Cornwall Watergate BayCornwall PolzeathCornwall PorthlevenCornwall Croyde BayDevon WoolacombeDevon Saltburn-by-the-SeaNorth East Tynemouth LongsandsNorth East Hell's Mouth (Porth Neigwl)North Wales LlangennithGower, Wales Caswell BayGower, Wales Thurso EastScotland

You can browse every spot we cover here, or search by name on the forecast page.

A few common questions

Is Magicseaweed coming back?

No. Surfline owns the domain and the data is fully merged into their platform. There's no public plan or signal that MSW will return as a separate site.

What happened to my MSW account or favourites?

MSW accounts were not migrated. Forum posts, user photos, and saved spots were retired with the site.

Why does everyone still say "check MSW"?

Twenty years of habit. The brand became shorthand for surf forecast the same way "hoover" means vacuum cleaner. Probably another few years before that fades.

Is MysticSwell really free?

Yes. No paywall, no signup required to view forecasts. There are some account features in the works (spot favourites, alerts) but the forecast itself stays free.