Shipping Forecast - centenary celebration/articles on Radio 4

LittleSister

LittleSister

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In case anyone has missed it, the BBC is celebrating the centenary of the Shipping Forecast has a host of programmes on R4 about its history, production and significance.

I believe that this is happening, or at least kicking off, on New Year's Day. Presumably the programmes will also subsequently be available on BBC Sounds.

BBC Radio 4 - Shipping Forecast - The Shipping Forecast Centenary
 

'Nessa to read old Shipping Forecast for centenary'​

Gavin and Stacey's Nessa to read old Shipping Forecast

Maybe we could get our very own 'continuity announcer' Frank S. to read out an old Shipping Forecast for us.... perhaps this one:

The BBC Radio Shipping Forecast on 11 August 1979 broadcast at 13:55 that day predicted "south-westerly winds, force four to five increasing to force six to seven for a time."
 
Back in the day when one relied on long wave radio shipping forecasts , I noted with some unease that the introduction of female presenters of the forecast seemed to diminish the projection of the sound clarity in a creaky old boat @ range at sea..

Heresy perhaps but subjectively it was an an added complication to gettting and writing down the forecast in a gale of wind..
My bad, my bad ears? 👂👂
 
Blueboatman said:
Back in the day when one relied on long wave radio shipping forecasts , I noted with some unease that the introduction of female presenters of the forecast seemed to diminish the projection of the sound clarity in a creaky old boat @ range at sea..
👂
Click to expand...
Not on long wave, or in UK, but I recollect a lady forecaster on the radio years ago when on holiday in Croatia. Her pronunciation of "foxtrot" (more like "ferxtrert") was so wonderfully articulated that we kept practising it!
 
Those of a certain age will remember the time when the shipping forecast was all we had. I was one of those writing RYA manuals and books on how to get a quarter out of a pint pot. The SF only ever could be, and only ever was a general overview. It was, and must still be, often incredibly difficult to write. 330 words in total to cover 31 areas including the preamble and list of areas with warnings in force. The introduction on BBC in the 70s of inshore forecasters gave a little more relevant information to coastal sailors.

In the late 90s/early 00s, I was attending meetings convened by the then extant Conference of Yacht Cruising Clubs and hearing yachtsmen/women declare that the world would end if the SF ceased. They could not accept my view that that was not so.

Times have moved on. The current SF only on FM is now irrelevant. Within FM range we have MCA VHF, 8 times daily. Within the old BBC LW, 200 kHz we have NAVTEX. The only reason for the BBC to continue the SF on Radio 4 is to help little old ladies go to sleep. They need only play Sailing By!

Once GRIB data products became widely available, forecasts of that nature are really only useful as warnings and general overviews. Before going to sea, I always recommend looking at GMDSS texts to get that overall view and to check for any warnings. It would be stupid going to sea without that information.
 
LW shipping forecast was wonderful in the 80s before the advent of cheap SW radios and France Inter’s whole Atlantic areas forecasts ..

At night/ when lucky- you could pick up the bbc LW forecast right down the Portuguese coast, particularly valuable in the autumn as the big lows start to sweep in and ‘ducking and dashing’ became the norm to safe coastal passage making progress..
 
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