In most of Cornwall it was less windy than a few days back, in Penzance the strongest gust (26mph) was less than the 31mph recorded Sunday afternoon. Even out at Sevenstones off Land's End it never got above F6. Of course the swell was quite impressive for summer, although a bigger swell occurs several times a year. Today it the swell peake at about 18' or between 5 & 5 metres
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=62107 . The return period for a swell twice that height (11 metres) is 5 years. That's when it starts getting noteworthy

The weather presenters insisted todays overhyped strong winds created the large swell - complete bo**cks. The swell was created during gale-severe gales to WSW of Ireland as the slow moving (hence long duration high winds) low developed a couple of days back. That's why today's event was so predictable. The large swell had (as opposed to the locally generated rough choppy sea) a period of around 12sec, which you'd expect from the generation location, and again the forecasts from 2-3 days back were spot on.

If you use the piece of string on a globe technique to create a great circle route from an area from the WSW of Ireland, the swell comes in soloely on the north coast, the south coast was much calmer.

Graham
Penzance