Tide Tables

Q

Quandary

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I am a lazy and never liked maths and so so tend to collect or download tide tables from shops and websites for each of the principal ports in the areas I sail in, Greenock/Belfast, Oban, Ullapool, etc. plus Dover. For example for Oban I used Puffin Dive Centre's website but like many sites the lists are continuous so do not printout in separate months. This morning I discovered that Google Maps publish annual tables for about fifty ports around Scotland and an even greater number in a separate list for England. They are listed a month to a page but the bottom half is a sponsors advert though when this is trimmed off you have a handy A5 booklet for each port covering the individual months you are sailing there. They just give times and heights without all the sunrise sunset guff that clutters some lists, so concise and easy to read.

I am sure you probably all have something better but I just discovered it this morning and was pleased to be able to make up half a dozen sets of different handy tidal booklets in about 15 minutes.
 
dunedin said:
Presumably you don't go sailing anywhere without data signals then

Like Quandary I like to print relevant pages of tides for our main cruise. Another vote for Puffin Dive site for Oban and I mist try the google maps suggestion for Ullapool, one place I have not found yet in printable format
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There are loads of tide table apps that require no signal at all as the data is stored locally.

Presumably you don't have an iPhone?
 
Ex-SolentBoy said:
There are loads of tide table apps that require no signal at all as the data is stored locally.

Presumably you don't have an iPhone?
Click to expand...

Actually I have an HTC phone which uses Android widgets so have UK Tides app which shows next local tide in he widget on the home page. Also Navionics and a bunch of other apps.
But fair point can generally look up tide using the App - but I tend to prefer a tide table for longe term planning
 
I knew this thread was a mistake almost as soon as I started it, but I am a dinosaur and I thought perhaps there may be others. Seems there may be a few. My Meridian nav. package includes live tides and I do refer to them. But I also carry several pilot books and an Admiralty Tidal Atlas, the latter is based on Dover so I put the current years Dover tide tables inside it. I refer to this for broad passage planning when on board. The CCC pilot books I use include printed tidal info. based on primary ports, Greenock for the Clyde, Oban for Argyll and the Inner Hebrides and Ullapool for Sutherland etc. etc. so I can open the book and use the info. without reference to my phone or laptop.
I suspect that there are some of you unable to appreciate that people of my age who did their Yachtmasters when you had to learn Morse and Semaphore, while welcoming Decca and Then GPS have never been entirely comfortable being dependent on battery operated electronic devices. It is probably just habit but then I have a long standing aversion to the mobile phone which made my life hell when every joiner or brickie too thick or lazy to look at the drawings they were issued with, pestered me from 07-00 until bedtime.
We will die out soon but while we are still around it is great that printed and printable information is still available. The rest of you are of course free to ignore it.
 
Quandary said:
I am a lazy and never liked maths and so so tend to collect or download tide tables from shops and websites for each of the principal ports in the areas I sail in, Greenock/Belfast, Oban, Ullapool, etc. plus Dover. For example for Oban I used Puffin Dive Centre's website but like many sites the lists are continuous so do not printout in separate months. This morning I discovered that Google Maps publish annual tables for about fifty ports around Scotland and an even greater number in a separate list for England. They are listed a month to a page but the bottom half is a sponsors advert though when this is trimmed off you have a handy A5 booklet for each port covering the individual months you are sailing there. They just give times and heights without all the sunrise sunset guff that clutters some lists, so concise and easy to read.

I am sure you probably all have something better but I just discovered it this morning and was pleased to be able to make up half a dozen sets of different handy tidal booklets in about 15 minutes.
Click to expand...

I'm particularly lazy, and got so fed up doing all those convoluted calculations for the West coast tidal gates that I resorted to creating my own - http://agurney.com/oban-tides
 
Quandary said:
I knew this thread was a mistake almost as soon as I started it, but I am a dinosaur and I thought perhaps there may be others. Seems there may be a few. My Meridian nav. package includes live tides and I do refer to them. But I also carry several pilot books and an Admiralty Tidal Atlas, the latter is based on Dover so I put the current years Dover tide tables inside it. I refer to this for broad passage planning when on board. The CCC pilot books I use include printed tidal info. based on primary ports, Greenock for the Clyde, Oban for Argyll and the Inner Hebrides and Ullapool for Sutherland etc. etc. so I can open the book and use the info. without reference to my phone or laptop.
/QUOTE]

As a fellow dinosaur, I have applied the constant for Oban, for each hour (page) in the Tidal Atlas, and mark each page relative to Oban, and use Oban tide tables. I find that for sailing in that area, this gives a better "feel". It's much more realistic to know that the tide changes in the Sound of Mull at approximately High and Low Water Oban, than five hours from the tide at Dover.

I also used to use tables kindly provided by Puffin Dive, but they seem to have stopped doing it. Several local companies give them as advertising freebies. :)
Click to expand...
 
agurney said:
Oh, i can get to Google OK, but your link isn't much good north of Englandshire :)
Click to expand...

It took several searching steps, but eventually I found the Scottish tide index and map at
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?i...d=217816775378872311133.0004e96a07261699273bc

with a link to Ullapool tables at
http://www.planetseafishing.com/downloads/ullapool-2014.pdf
which can be printed and the logo cut off.

Gordon

PS Mr. Tides does well for Scottish anchorages on a Mac, and stands alone without needing that elusive Internet connection.

PPS http://agurney.com/tides.pdf is very handy, thanks.
 
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