Huge So Cal swell last week breaking into King Harbor

[Mary Mac]

Randy, how was it at your marina last week during the big swell? A photographer friend snapped this photo of a wave crashing over the King Harbor breakwall.

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[rcvesselstyn]

That's a great shot! We didn't get down to the boat until it had calmed down substantially.

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we are in the Port Royal section of King Harbor so we are behind another Jetty with a hotel on it. It is extremely rare that we get any wild wave action.

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Back in the 70s when we had the Cal 25 my dad and my brother and I all had our boats in the King Harbor Marina proper. During the big storms the large waves would break on the bend at the breakwater at the King Harbor Yacht Club. The pressure of the waves through the Breakwater would blast the asphalt out of the parking lot at the Yacht Club. 10 lb chunks of asphalt would be shot 6 ft in the air. Not only did it destroy the parking lot out there but it caused a lot of damage to the cars that were left.

[SailingChris]

So the guy in the Great Lakes asks where is King Harbor?

Chris Campbell
Cal 20 # 1220, Martha C

[rcvesselstyn]

King Harbor is in Redondo Beach, Califonia. The harbor has always been a site of a pier or at least since the 1800s. That's because there is a deep water canyon that runs almost all the way to the beach. The canyon has such steep walls when you're diving you can actually see the sand cascading down like an underwater waterfall. Before Los Angeles Harbor was completely developed they were campaigning to have Redondo Beach have the commercial Harbor. But Redondo is on the weather side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula while LA Harbor is shielded from the majority of the weather by the Peninsula. The harbor was built in 1961, slightly before the larger harbor further up the coast, Marina Del Rey was completed. My dad moved our boat to King Harbor before the harbor was fully finished.
Redondo Beach is the home of Dive and Surf which is Body Glove. A very famous dive shop / wetsuit manufacturer. It was owned by twin brothers that had a TV show. Because my dad knew them I knew them fairly well. Just down the street from their shop was Mel Fisher the famous treasure hunter's dive shop. I got my first mask and fins from him long before he left to find his treasures. The Beach Boys were in Hawthorne just inland of Redondo Beach. They immortalized the area in Surfing USA. They mentioned in the song a spot just south of Redondo called Haggerty's. It was a surf spot just in front of a large mansion on the cliff where the mate and I got married. We are tied to this area. That is why after coming back after 30 years in LA Harbor it felt so much like home.