(\_ Contents | Mark
& Cindy | Ericson
boat club | Ranger
boat club
Loaded with prospectors and tons of gear and supplies, the sailing ship Lucile prepared to cast off its lines and sail for Alaska and the Klondike in 1898. The vintage square-rigger was just one of hundreds of steam and sail-powered ships that carried fortune-seekers north to the gold fields.
Photograph by Asahel Curtis, Museum of History and Industry.(\_ Mark & Cindy | Ericson boat club | Ranger boat club
(\_ Mark & Cindy | Ericson boat club | Ranger boat club | ^-- Contents
(\_ Mark & Cindy | Ericson boat club | Ranger boat club | ^-- Contents
(\_ Mark & Cindy | Ericson boat club | Ranger boat club | ^-- Contents
(\_ Mark & Cindy | Ericson boat club | Ranger boat club | ^-- Contents
•• Canadian Current Atlas: Juan de Fuca Strait to Strait of Georgia. Includes our San Juan Islands. Although it contains detailed instructions (very detailed!) about how to know which of the hundred charts to consult at each hour, most of us use one of the several keys (lookup tables).
. Washburne's Tables
. Ports and Passes Current Atlas Tables
. Murray's Tables. Someone has suggested that these are superior to others. Not sure where to get it, unfortunately, nor if it really is worth the extra effort.
. Online tables project @ Epiphyte (With reservations, however; caveat!)•• Capt'n Jack's @ West Marine 2009.
. Tides: "Page a day" tide book covering quite a few locations.
. Currents: Perpetual charts with yearly lookup tables.This has been sold, and publication has been somewhat troubled recently. Their web site no longer answers, and the new publisher, Robert Hale and Co., seems not to mention it on their web site. Furthermore, West Marine seems to list only the lookup table, not the perpetual current chart book itself. If it's gone, too bad. The tide book was nice, and plenty of people preferred their current charts over the Canadian presentation.
•• Tide Tool: http://www.toolworks.com/bilofsky/tidetool/
For a few years, several of us used this on our Palm OS hand-held computers. There may be nothing quite like it (for free, that is) for the iPhones that a few of us are now packing.
For a special treat, sailing Palm enthusiasts should scroll down that page to the bullet item "From San Francisco Bay" under the heading "How People Use Tide Tool". (Jeff Hawkins, designer of the original Palm and the Handspring Visor, uses Tide Tool.)
There are tides programs ("apps") for Apple's iTouch (iPhone & iPod Touch), but the free apps either require Web connections or in other ways are inferior to Tide Tool. This could change, of course.
•• JTides: http://vps.arachnoid.com/JTides/index.html for the larger computer.
This is a Java app, which means that it runs on both PCs and Macs. (Windows users will have to make certain that the Java runtime system is in place. Having the Java browser plug-in in place isn't enough. For information, see the Microsoft web site.)
The author's circumnavigation is there, too.
•• There are web sites that generate tables that can be printed at home or synced onto a PDA. These can (also) be consulted using web-connected hand-held devices.
. NOAA
. WWW Tide and Current Predictor
. Also newspapers and broadcast media websites.•• Puget Sound Currents
NOAA has ceased publication of their two Tidal Current Charts (one for north, one for south), but apparently a local publisher has permission to carry on: Starpath.
•• Swinomish Channel Currents
The Swinomish Channel, which runs under the Rainbow Bridge and past La Conner, WA, looks like a river. It behaves like a river, too, except that it periodically stops and changes direction, and occasionally runs (if the reports from locals can be credited) in both directions--either from or toward its middle (lengthwise).
Weird.
To fail to understand the complicated currents here might be to fail to arrive at your destination when expected.
090813•• Update: I have just had a brief look at "SailFlow", which contains a configurable "My[page]" that can contain information for places you choose to have displayed. Tide and current information for a large number of locations are available. 19 May 2008
Update: Tide table applications are available for Apple's iPod Touch--a device that grew out of their iconic music player but which has mostly grown into a real PDA (and can seem very much like an actual hand-held computer). However, the free tide apps I have tried are--so far--very much inferior to Bilofsky's Tide Tool.
(\_ Mark & Cindy | Ericson boat club | Ranger boat club | ^-- Contents
These have not been checked recently. I do solicit corrections. --mdk_
I do not intend to compete with other big sailing portals, but if you come across something that you think seems to belong here, e-mail it to me. Inform me of bad links, too; some of this has not been checked for quite some time. --mdk_
07 October 2009
[ Top ]
© 1999-2009 & site development by Mark Kelsey, who accepts responsibility for everything on this site that nobody else will own up to.