B27
Well-known member
IMHO, you can't beat having a pilot book like Mark Fishwick's 'West Country Cruising', to have a whole lot of useful info in one place, in an accessible format. I don't know the equivalent books once you get beyond Scilly.
Also most of what you ever want to know is in the Reeds Almanac, just not always instant to find.
It's worth spending some time with the books and the charts.
I like to have the tide stream chartlets copied and easily available..
Once you build a basic understanding of how the big-picture East/West currents relate to HW times, it all tends to fall into place.
There a limit to how much you can plan. Last year we spent quite a few days off the Devon and Cornwall coasts with the wind being at least 90 degrees different from the forecast. The nicer the weather, the less reliable the wind forecasts....?
A few miles offshore, there is mostly decent mobile internet. We find the NCI coastwatch station weather instruments quite useful, it's handy to know what's actually happening at Rame Head etc. In the anchorages, signals can still be poor.
Also most of what you ever want to know is in the Reeds Almanac, just not always instant to find.
It's worth spending some time with the books and the charts.
I like to have the tide stream chartlets copied and easily available..
Once you build a basic understanding of how the big-picture East/West currents relate to HW times, it all tends to fall into place.
There a limit to how much you can plan. Last year we spent quite a few days off the Devon and Cornwall coasts with the wind being at least 90 degrees different from the forecast. The nicer the weather, the less reliable the wind forecasts....?
A few miles offshore, there is mostly decent mobile internet. We find the NCI coastwatch station weather instruments quite useful, it's handy to know what's actually happening at Rame Head etc. In the anchorages, signals can still be poor.
