For kayaking, swimming, and stand-up paddleboarding (SUP) enthusiasts in West Seattle, timing the perfect water conditions just got a whole lot easier. A new website, the Alki Surf App, has been launched to provide highly specific wave condition forecasts for both the Alki and Constellation Park sides of the peninsula.

See the app HERE.

The app is the brainchild of local kayaker and tech product analyst Kevin Kramer. The inspiration for the project was born out of a common modern dilemma: finding the time. "I live in Alki and purchased paddleboards during the pandemic but being a new dad with a busy social calendar I was having a hard time getting on the water at the right time," Kramer shared.

To solve this, Kramer built a tool that calculates wave swell based on the duration and direction of the wind. It provides a straightforward scoring system where a 10 signifies optimal conditions to hit the water, while a score of 0 indicates a "no go" because the wind is simply too strong.

A Background in Wave Tech 

While this is technically Kramer's first public application, following what he describes as a "graveyard of ideas" that served as learning experiences—he is no stranger to complex technology or wave monitoring. Professionally, he manages a team that keeps over 50 applications running, providing him with a deep understanding of what a high-quality digital product should look like.

Furthermore, about four years ago, Kramer worked on a project for Sound Transit to gather requirements for a wave height forecasting and monitoring system for the I-90 floating bridge. That project tracked wind speeds and directions over long periods to determine if transit service should be reduced on the bridge to prevent maintenance issues.

Kramer was able to adapt this enterprise-level concept for his own neighborhood. "I essentially used the same concept for this application, but just using public data sources and made it highly specific to Alki's geography," he explained.

From Concept to Polish 

The initial development of the Alki Surf App moved quickly. Kramer spent one weekend writing the product specifications and the next weekend building the minimum viable product (MVP) using Claude Code (an AI tool). He then dedicated about a month to polishing the app, ensuring it was screen-reader accessible, adding animations, and diligently crushing bugs. He noted that troubleshooting is an ongoing process, having recently worked on a fix for a bug where a negative tide was incorrectly displaying as higher than a high tide.

What's Next? 

For now, Kramer is focused on perfecting the local experience. While the idea of worldwide deployment has crossed his mind, he is keeping the project small until all the bugs are worked out. Because the United States offers excellent public data that might be harder to source in other countries, his immediate plans are to stay local.

If the community embraces the app and it doesn't become too expensive to maintain on his "hobby money," Kramer plans to expand the app's coverage to more locations within King County before looking toward the rest of Washington State or beyond. Ultimately, Kramer says his future looks bright, adding, "The future is looking like I will be able to start producing more complicated things soon”