Saltburn: The North Sea Works, It Just Keeps Winter Hours

Saltburn is the North East's surf town: a Victorian pier, a cliff lift, a long run of sand under Huntcliff and a sea that makes Cornwall feel like a warm bath. It works far more often than anyone south of Leeds assumes. It just keeps its best days for the months when the water is coldest.

The wave

Beach break either side of the pier, which does a decent job of holding the sandbanks in place. The peaks closest to it are usually the most consistent and, for the same reason, the busiest. Give the pilings a proper berth: when the tide's pulling along the beach, they are a lot closer than they looked from the promenade. Walk east towards Huntcliff and you'll often find a peak with fewer people on it.

North Sea swell is a different animal from the Atlantic stuff. It's shorter period, so the waves are closer together, punchier and less generous on the paddle out. You get fewer lulls and more duck-dives. On a clean day it's fast, fun and properly rewarding. On a messy one it's a lot of paddling for a handful of short rides.

When to go

• Swell: North to northeast. Most of it comes from low pressure tracking down the North Sea, so it arrives with the wind rather than ahead of it. The good days tend to be the ones just after a northerly blow, when the swell's still running and the wind has eased or swung. Autumn through spring is the season. Summer can go flat for weeks at a time.
• Wind: South to southwest is offshore, and that's the UK's prevailing wind, which is the one thing the east coast has over the west. Anything from the north or east and it's onshore slop.
• Tide: Mid tide is generally the most reliable. Low can get shallow and close out on the bigger days, and high pushes it up into a heavy shorebreak. The banks move with every winter storm, so have a look before you commit.

What it'll cost you

The North Sea bottoms out around 6-7°C in February and March and only gets to about 14-15°C by late August, a good couple of degrees behind the South West. So a 5/4 with hood, boots and gloves from November to May, and plenty of people stay in a 4/3 right through the summer. The water isn't even the worst of it. In January that southwesterly offshore has come straight across the moors, and it finds every wet bit of you on the walk back up the bank. Your head goes first: a Fisherman Beanie or a Dome Warmer goes on before anything else does. The rest of the car-boot list is in the winter guide.

The honest bit

Saltburn is small, and Teesside is right next door. A clean swell on a weekend with an offshore wind brings everyone, and the peaks by the pier get crowded fast. In summer the surf schools have the white water. Early mornings and midweek winter sessions are where it's at, and in February you won't be fighting anyone for a wave.

When Saltburn's too small or too messy, you've got options up and down the coast. A few miles southeast, Skinningrove is a right-hander by the old jetty that holds bigger swell. It's an experienced surfer's wave with water the colour of strong tea, so treat it with some respect. An hour up the A19, Tynemouth's Longsands is the other big North East beach. South, Scarborough and Cayton Bay pick up their own swells and are worth a separate trip.

Then there's the changing. That means the seafront or the bank top, with the wind coming off the sea or down from the moors, whichever is worse that day. Something to stand on helps. So does not doing it in a towel.

More UK breaks in the Guide to Spots. For the other side of the country, where the Atlantic does the work and the wind usually ruins it, see Llangennith.

Kit built for exactly these conditions, not the brochure version. svrf.uk