Tide Tables [Archive] - BSAC Scuba Diving Forums

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Nicole Mehta

04-08-2003, 17:38

Keith Lawrence(BSAC)

05-08-2003, 10:43

Any suggestions of where can I go to get tide tables for next year? Ideally without having to download a huge program.

Looking at planning good weekends to go to places and attempting a high degree of organisation...

Nicole

Your search will be in vain. There used to be several sources of UK tidal information online such as WXTide32 ( <a href="http://www.wxtide32.com/" >http://www.wxtide32.com/</a>) and <a href="http://www.tidetimes.co.uk/," >http://www.tidetimes.co.uk/,</a> both of these have now been suspended for the entire UK.

It has been deemed by the-powers-that-be that the harmonic variables required to calculate tidal information are crown copyright and subject to quite a considerable and ongoing licence fee for anybody who wants to use them. So unlike virtually every other country in the world where this information is public domain you now have to pay H M Government (Plc?) to be allowed to know when the tide will go in and out.

If you do find somewhere free and online then keep it to yourself and your friends. Such public and free services are being actively pursued by government lawyers in an attempt to extract money from this natural phenomenon. King Canute - eat your heart out!

Keith L

Chris Cherrington

05-08-2003, 10:50

Try

<a href="http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/tidalp.html" >http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/tidalp.html</a>

Shhh...... !!!!!!!!!!!

Nicole Mehta

05-08-2003, 11:11

Found this and was somewhat mystified as to why I could get what I needed, tides for next year, for St Helena and Ascenssion Island, but only the next seven days worth for the UK!

But after KL's words of wisdom all is now clear... as a puddle of mud.

Thanks guys. Guess it's hand over the money and get the half tree worth of tome that then goes in the bin after I've used it oooh, 3 times....

Try

http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/tidalp.html

Shhh...... !!!!!!!!!!!

Chris Cherrington

05-08-2003, 11:18

If you want to get table for free visit your local marina and most of them publish the tide times in their brochures - certainly ours (Brighton) does and Dover also. Another cheap place to get tables is the local angling shop. This assumes you live close to the sea or are visiting before you need the data....

Chris

Steve Walker

05-08-2003, 14:09

Keith Lawrence(BSAC)

05-08-2003, 14:59

Not a program to download, but this is what I use
Cheers

...which is limited to 7 days in advance, you wont find anything for next year which is what Nicole (and a lot of us) are after. The full TotalTide looks very good, but it's not 70 quid plus 60 quid per annum good IMHO if all you're after is neap times (that's just for the UK, 500+ for worldwide).

There are other products out there, do a Google search, but there are specific licence conditions that prohibit any publication of the data that they produce.

Regards

Keith L

gary pittaway

05-08-2003, 15:38

Nicole,

Have a look at a Reeds (MacMillan) Nautical Almanac. You get them from chandleries mostly, or order it on line and get a discount. You can also get them from boat shows etc. It will give an entire years worth of tidal heights for standard ports, and for other smaller ports called secondary ports, there is a calculation that you can do to ascertain what it would be.

eg Suppose you want Swanage HW or LW slack. You establish the Standard port, which is Poole and do a simple sum, which would get you the Swanage times. The book is also crammed with other VERY helpful maritime advice. You will be surprised at what you will find. Anyone going to sea on a regular basis SHOULD have one.

One can also get less bulky ones for a specific region (No point is having the entire country if you only do the South Coast)plus loose leaf ones, which are VERY handy. These do of course come at a price. The big one is about ?35, and the smaller ones about ?25.

Regards,

Gary.

Any suggestions of where can I go to get tide tables for next year? Ideally without having to download a huge program.

Looking at planning good weekends to go to places and attempting a high degree of organisation...

Thank you!

Nicole

Mike Halligan

05-08-2003, 16:27

There's also Laver's Tide Tables at about ?1.25. These give HW, LW, Sun & Moon rise & set, lunar phases for a year. The data is bought from Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory.

If you don't want to replace your Almanac every year (and who does?) the tables will extend your current edition for 2 or 3 years and make it less expensive (mine was ?30 from Amazon last year).

The tables generally appear in September and are stocked by chandlers, sea-fishing shops and some newsagents/ booksellers in maritime towns.

HTH

Mike

Philip Smith

05-08-2003, 21:50

The full TotalTide looks very good, but it's not 70 quid plus 60 quid per annum good IMHO if all you're after is neap times

If you only want to find when neaps weekends are for booking boats, many diaries (and no doubt many web sites) give phases of the moon, from which you can predict when springs and neaps will occur.

Philip Smith

Keith Lawrence(BSAC)

05-08-2003, 22:58

:=The full TotalTide looks very good, but it's not 70 quid plus 60 quid per annum good IMHO if all you're after is neap times

If you only want to find when neaps weekends are for booking boats, many diaries (and no doubt many web sites) give phases of the moon, from which you can predict when springs and neaps will occur.

With a lot of faffing about and old tide tables you can do it but it's MUCH simpler if you've got the simple tide tables - in the public domain like the rest of the planet seems to have! Simple phases of the moon are too coarse, it varies by a few days between different ports, there are "good" neaps and "bad" neaps, "good" HW/LW times (slack times of course vary) and "bad" HW/LW times - you try getting a bunch of divers up for the 07:00 slack on Sunday morning ;-)

For the type of 'in advance' dive planning that Nicole wants you don't need super accurate timings or wizz bang software features like the time your keel will clear the sand bar, you just need simple outline information like height graphs and HW/LW time indications. All of that used to be available through excellent little freeware applications like WXTide32. But that was stopped in 2001 by H M Government, we are now expected to pay AGAIN for information that we've already paid for through our taxes.

(Sorry folks, a litle "whinge" of mine, something that annoys me).

Regards

Keith L

Philip Smith

06-08-2003, 14:08

With a lot of faffing about

Hardly.

Simple phases of the moon are too coarse, it varies by a few days between different ports

No, the lag between the moon's phases and the spring/neap cycle doesn't vary by as much as that around most of the British Isles.

, there are "good" neaps and "bad" neaps

Agreed.

, "good" HW/LW times (slack times of course vary) and "bad" HW/LW times - you try getting a bunch of divers up for the 07:00 slack on Sunday morning ;-)

Slack water on neap tides at a particlar place will be at _roughly_ the same time of day, give or take an hour or two. However, I would concede that at the advance planning stage the difference between a 1000 slack and a 0800 slack may affect the likelihood of filling the trip!

Yes, full tide tables or a prediction program would be better (and yes it would be nice if organisations we have contributed to would give us all their products at no extra charge). But if you don't have them, moon phases tell you reasonably well which days neaps occur and roughly when HW/LW will be for somewhere you have old tidal info.

Philip Smith

Andy Nye

06-08-2003, 15:04

With the last 3 old months worth of tides from your present tide table, can can in fact make your own including tide hieghts

HOW...........

Microsoft EXCEL......

You can see over a months period the time difference in minutes,can see how the tidal hieghts can be easy to work out over an average.

Now i have only done this for Dover, however, i'm not clever enuff yet to try PORTSMOUTH.
Lots of typing , but fun to do once it's finished.

ANdy.

Gordon Archer

08-08-2003, 15:21

Your search will be in vain. There used to be several sources of UK tidal information online such as WXTide32 ( <a href="http://www.wxtide32.com/" >http://www.wxtide32.com/</a>) and <a href="http://www.tidetimes.co.uk/," >http://www.tidetimes.co.uk/,</a> both of these have now been suspended for the entire UK.

It has been deemed by the-powers-that-be that the harmonic variables required to calculate tidal information are crown copyright and subject to quite a considerable and ongoing licence fee for anybody who wants to use them. So unlike virtually every other country in the world where this information is public domain you now have to pay H M Government (Plc?) to be allowed to know when the tide will go in and out.

If you do find somewhere free and online then keep it to yourself and your friends. Such public and free services are being actively pursued by government lawyers in an attempt to extract money from this natural phenomenon. King Canute - eat your heart out!

Keith L

Lets get all interested diver's to log on to EasyTide.Com and request an extended forcast, they have just replied to me on this very same subject.
They are looking at enhancing their website service and they may just provide what we need if enough of us request it.

deepbreath

11-08-2003, 20:27

Any suggestions of where can I go to get tide tables for next year? Ideally without having to download a huge program.

Looking at planning good weekends to go to places and attempting a high degree of organisation...

Thank you!

Nicole

Presume you have tryed lavers the publishers, if you have not got it, there e-mail ad is, <a href="mailto:tides@laverpublishing.com">tides@laverpublishing.com</a>

Regards nick in cheshire.

Robert McLaughlin

18-08-2003, 19:27

Andy Nye

31-08-2003, 10:02

Nicole,

Here you go, fill ya boots,

PLEASE NOTE, after carefully checkin the times, the BST hour ha been added in th appropiate dates making it easier you you.

Andy.

Hope this helps others out as well,,,, See there is a GOOD nature to me , my mum always taught me to SHARE things.

Andy Nye

31-08-2003, 10:48

Nicole

Here you go.

Please note that the BST hour has been added in the right places

Andy

See my mum did say i was a nice lad and that i shared things.

;-)