Tide Watches

Could you not set way points based on these and then set "alarm with X of" to remind you it's getting shallow.

Here's a really cheap and simple suggestion, although I realize men prefer gadgets.

Can't you attach a waterproof, clear plastic envelope to your mainsail, like distance racers have for their charts? And then before you go sailing, print out all the tide information for the day and put it in the envelope so you can easily read it?

Surf companies make tide watches. I have a Ripcurl ATS Oceantide. It is digital and I use it as a racing watch also. It was $100.

http://www.ripcurl.com/content/anmviewer.asp?a=2653&z=90

I was looking at one at Wal-Mart for about $7. It had about 50 east and west coast cities in its database and nothing on the Gulf. Huge numbers, too.

Tide Tool is a nice Palm app with over 7000 locations worldwide. There are nine locations on my bay system alone. It has currents for some passes and sun and moon rise and set times. It also can go out to any future date. For instance, I know that the Slip to Ship racers will be fighting a rising tide at 0900 on the 28th and slack for the return. Best thing is that the software is free, and with older Palms going for $20 to $40 on Ebay, it's probably the cheapest portable tide tool you could find. Aquapac makes cases for Palms, too.

Ungah bunga! Not like plastic bag! Give stick.

I thought about doing something like this, but I succumbed to the "gadget" gene(s) instead.

I KNEW you wouldn't like the plastic bag idea. And you probably don't get your weather forecasts from the Old Farmer's Almanac, either.

It's hard to find a low-tech man these days -- especially on this forum.

But, seriously, does the water in parts of Barnegat Bay get so shallow you can't sail it in a Wave?

Steveh,

I use Tide Tool 2.2 on a Palm Tungsten and it is brilliantly accurate! I find that it is never more than a few minutes out from the officially published high/low times and usually within .2m or so of published heights. It is so convenient to be able to just glance at my Palm whenever we are having a quick calculate at home as to whether it would be worth going sailing on a particular day, what time we should have family lunch etc. It's much quicker and easier than digging through the tide tables and I have my Palm with me almost always.

Of course my view is that it's worth going sailing at any time

Not only brilliantly accurate, but with a Palm dating from the 20th century, low-tech, too!

Low-tech? I don't even know what a "Palm" is, except a tree where we live.

Turns out there's another free tide program for Pocket PCs running Windows CE.

The Casio Sea-Pathfinder series all seem to have Tide graphs or tide calculators built in. They're pretty inexpensive.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=31387&item=4993817462&rd=1

Large expanses of Barnegat bay are very shallow (1-3 ft or less). I don't sail exclusively in these areas, but doing so has several advantages:

1. Less motor boat and jet ski traffic.

2. Flatter water.

3. Navigational "short cuts"--less manuevering and more direct routes in some wind conditions to get to wherever it is I'm going.

The disadvantage is:

Getting trapped or otherwise stranded as the tide falls.

Hence the desire to have some accurate tide info so I can cut things close.

On reflection: the plastic bag approach seems sort of appropriate as it is more of a purist approach (no motor therefore minimal gadgets?). Perhaps I should think some about my "philosophy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke

http://www.minifarmhomestead.com/outdoors/richardproenneke.htm

Thanks Mary

Looking for my xmas present.
Any sugestions for a good all round sailing watch.

Bandit:

I LOVE the Ronstan Clear Start. The Sync function has saved or butt and won us races. And it is TOUGH. Also easy to see numbers and beeps at the minutes.

Doug

I have this one... Tide, and I think it looks pretty cool too.

http://www.nixonnow.com/watches/mens/the-lodown-A530.html

I don't think there's any point in attempting to rely on what a tidal watch is going to tell you. There's no such thing as accurate tidal predictions unfortunately. There are far too many factors at play apart from the predictable astronomical ones - wind direction and strength, atmospheric pressure and even recent rainfall. Our club spends a lot of money on expensive tidal prediction software which can - in theory - give a tidal height for any 10 minute point. Sailing on a tidal river estuary (the Firth of Forth in Scotland) and using a slipway that needs 1.4m over chart datum for us to be able to use it means that knowing when low tide is (and how low it will be) is important to us in scheduling racing. However experience tells us that the best tidal prediction can be out by 2 hours or more.

I found Suunto do an amazing range of sailing watches

Take a look at this one

<a href=" http://www.suunto.com/suunto/main/product_short.jsp?CONTENTcnt_id=10134198673958098&FOLDERfolder_id=9852723697223384&bmUID=113879914700 5" target="_blank">http://www.suunto.com/suunto/main/produc...D=1138799147005

I think however the tech work would detract from the Sail work

The problem is long range predictions do not take wind into account. If you need accurate predictions the best source I have found is the National Weather Service for your area.

The data is normally provided in text form so any internet phone will work. Or if you have a digital cell phone and a pocket PC you can have the Pocket PC dial in using the cell phone as a modem. If you make the tide information a Mobile Favorite the Pocket PC will sync the data. It takes about a minute of cell time.

I find I need information at this level about once or twice a year. The rest of the time the data from my last sync is good enough.

Be warned though. About half the places I sail do not have digital phone.