Unexpected Mull of Kintyre currents

JumbleDuck said:
I'm pretty sure that Crinan sells them, if you want to get one in that area.
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Thanks, next year, I'll pick them up. The big Almanac is simply unwieldy, so a smaller booklet would be just the ticket.
 
I use Imray's Tide Planner app on the iPad. The tidal atlas is based on Dover, but is a doddle to use. It is one app I definitely wouldn't be without on the boat. You can flick through tidal gates in real time as well as in the future and see what the streams are doing. Best £3.99 I've spent on the boat.

Donald
 
Aja said:
I use Imray's Tide Planner app on the iPad. The tidal atlas is based on Dover, but is a doddle to use. It is one app I definitely wouldn't be without on the boat. You can flick through tidal gates in real time as well as in the future and see what the streams are doing. Best £3.99 I've spent on the boat.

Donald
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If I drop my tidal atlas down through the hatch and then stand on it accidentally, I at least can still use it to determine the tidal streams. (-;
 
claymore said:
If you fix a lighter chain to your anchor you probably need to run with HW Broomielaw otherwise ye'l be there too soon because of yer increased boatspeed....
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That's a whole 15 minutes :D I think you're confusing Aja with a lean clean flying machine.
Tried waterskiing with the new engine?

Donald
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
Thanks, next year, I'll pick them up. The big Almanac is simply unwieldy, so a smaller booklet would be just the ticket.
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That's my feeling too. There's a similar booklet by someone else with Oban tides only, but as I spend half my time in the Clyde it's handy to have Greenock too. Lavers also include some time offsets for tidal gates, which is nice.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
I just write the times of HW Dover and the hour increments, before and after, along the top of the pages, for the weekend or week ahead. I then can forget all about Dover, or any other port. The simplicity of this method means I can immediately establish what the tide flow is by flipping to that day / time page. It also reduces the probability of a mistake by making a calculation when tired.

I prefer the Admiralty Tidal Atlas over those in Almanacs because the A4 pages are just easier to use, especially if you have to interpolate speeds between the arrows.
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That's what I do for offshore racing. The advantage of using Dover or Liverpool tides is that they determine the times of the primary flow into the channel or Irish Sea or North Channel.
 
awol said:
Now if only someone would produce a wee book like Paisley's usrd to.
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"Paisley's" as in "the department store on Jamaica Street which Hugh Fraser Jr ruined by turning it into Sir Hugh's"? I used to get my school uniform there and Hugh Fraser's girlfriend lived on our street so we often saw his roller parked outside her house. My mother was outraged when it stayed overnight ...

Yours reminiscently

JD
 
The handy little Oban Tide Tables are given away as freebies by many marine businesses in the larger Oban area, or if really, really stuck, are usually available for £1 or so. :D
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
If I drop my tidal atlas down through the hatch and then stand on it accidentally, I at least can still use it to determine the tidal streams. (-;
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I do my planning before I leave (-; ...

... and it's Usually the binoculars that go down the hatch :encouragement:


Donald
 
Here's another low cost (£3.75) booklet that might be useful. It has tide tables for the Scottish standard ports, but I think also pages for the other harbours shown on the cover. So you don't need to do the arithmetic.
tide-times-book-diary_2.jpg

https://www.anglingactive.co.uk/scottish-tide-times-and-tables-diary.html
 
I am back home now from the Clyde, so can look at the various calcs that I had done on a spreadsheet for a trip involving the Sound of Jura in July-Aug. So here are some additional thoughts.

The so-called Tidal Constants for various ports are not constant. During this period the differences between Dover and the Scottish ports varied as follows
Greenock to Dover HW: Differences varied from 0139hr on 03/08 to 0041hrs on 22/07.
A variation of 50mins.
Oban to Dover HW: Differences varied from 0537hr on 26/07 to 0451hr on 22/07
A variation of 46 mins.

Of more importance to us, is how these variations are reflected in the tidal stream changes.
In the CCC Directions, there are 3 ways of calculating the tidal stream changes close West of Mull of Kintyre. Looking at the time the tidal stream turns North, the tidal stream change times on 2 dates are:
Date 22/07 10/08
Greenock based 0525 0936
1838 2146
Oban based 0608 0954
1904 2203
Dover based 0604 0925
1828 2150

Interestingly, at the time the OP went around on the 10/08, all three calculations give similar times. However, on the 22/07, there are significant differences, with the Greenock times being earlier.

What has always intrigued me, is that single tidal stream change times are given for the MOK. However, for Dorus Mor, further up the Sound of Jura, it is reckoned that the tidal stream changes are 45mins earlier on Springs than on Neaps. The 10/08 is quite close to Springs, so could there be a partial answer here to the original question.

I had always regarded the more important note in the CCC Directions, was do not arrive at Deas Point earlier than +0610 Dover. Jumbleduck’s thoughts on a possible Gigha departure time of HWD+3 (Post 2) would thus mean he must not cover the 20nm to the MOK in less than 3hrs, which seems fine as the tidal stream in not initially favourable.

Picking up on the advice from AJA (Post 3), during Mid July-Early August, the Greenock LW time could be up 20mins earlier or later than the “no earlier at Deas Point” time, so my CCC guide now has the words written in it “aim to be at lighthouse just after Greenock LW”. Thanks to AJA.

Interestingly, in the excellent Ken Endean book “Coastal Turmoil”, he describes his trip East around the MOK, beating into a SE wind. He went on the very first change to the inner stream, (i.e. too early according to CCC) as he reckoned on that day that the turbulence caused where the East going inner stream met the outer stream going in the opposite direction would dissipate a lot of the wave energy and he was left with calmer waters closer to the MOK.

I would recommend this book to anybody sailing around this area, as it helps you to understand and predict certain sea conditions.
 
Martin&Rene said:
I had always regarded the more important note in the CCC Directions, was do not arrive at Deas Point earlier than +0610 Dover. Jumbleduck’s thoughts on a possible Gigha departure time of HWD+3 (Post 2) would thus mean he must not cover the 20nm to the MOK in less than 3hrs, which seems fine as the tidal stream in not initially favourable.
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I checked an old (1937) CCC book and the advice there, heading from Gigha, was to arrive off Machrihanish at slack water. How does that fit?
 
It is accepted that tides on the West Coast are not "constant" with Dover. It's always better to use more local tide information.
 
NormanS said:
It is accepted that tides on the West Coast are not "constant" with Dover. It's always better to use more local tide information.
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We were lucky then. On 5th Aug this year we left Gigha early for Glenarm to motor close down the coast of Kintyre estimating that the tide would turn in our favour across the North Channel as we passed the Mull. All based on Dover. Either the tide turned in our favour early or we hit a counter current because we picked up over a knot for the last hour to the Mull. And then the predicted SW 4 became a SSE 4 for a perfect close haul across the remains of a Wly wave pattern.
 
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