Season Greetings and Question

[Vince Kearney]

Hi, my name is Vince and I run "Irish Sea Cruises" I use a Red Bay 11.5 mtr full cabin, twin diesel RIB.
My question is, does anyone have any practical, useful info on the use of TIDAL SOFTWARE, to include ,flows, direction etc etc. If its available also weather info. I would like to link this info to my existing instruments, 10in Raymarine radar/plotter, Navtex +6 etc. Ideally plot a route from A to B, give it a departure time, and it returns with, ideal departure time and best route allowing for tide etc. I obviously use my RIB commercially and cover basically the Irish Sea. I envisage the tidal software would be most useful not only for economy but also timing and comfort.
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all Mariners.

Vince

[Michael]

On the weather front (so to speak) have a look at www.nowcastinginternational.com

I saw a software demo at a show in the past year that predicted journey times based on local tidal streams etc. The bad news is it was beyond my needs/budget so I filed the brochure away safely where I now cannot put my hand on it. If I find it I'll let you know.

Mike

[Michael]

Found it (I think!). As far as I can see most of these packages are PC-based. The one I saw was Navmaster - tidal stream data is incorporated from Proudman. See www.pcmaritime.co.uk

Boat electronics is the one area where there is something really new every year, which is why I am once again looking forward to my annual trip to the London Boat Show.

Mike

[whitingiom]

Vince

Are you doing cruises to the Isle of Man?

Didn't I read somewhere you were linking Ardglass & Peel?

[gavin]

hi vince as an aside I think there is some pics of your boat here
http://rib.net/forum/showthread.php?...+rib+raid+2003
gavin

[BrendanS]

Originally posted by Vince Kearney
does anyone have any practical, useful info on the use of TIDAL SOFTWARE, to include ,flows, direction etc etc. If its available also weather info. I would like to link this info to my existing instruments, 10in Raymarine radar/plotter, Navtex +6 etc. Ideally plot a route from A to B, give it a departure time, and it returns with, ideal departure time and best route allowing for tide etc.

Have a look at this thread, particularly posts by QSIV. This is a sailing forum, where tides and wind more important than to powerboaters, and interesting discussion, with use of software to predict routes. QSIV is writing software to do exactly what you asked, and in this thread is using it to analyse a trip made by someone who had used instrumentation to record a cross channel trip. Weather info was part of it, as was recorded wind speed and direction, and timings and positions from GPS.

click here