01 April 2008

High-tech Low Tide Indicator

There are a ton of traditional ways to define a low tide. Check tide tables. Look at the moon. Lead lines, depth sounders. Steep gangplanks are a dead give-away.

See, that's steep. Ergo, it's low tide.

But that's old school. Nobody does that any more. Not when there is the highest of high tech available to the advanced sailor (btw, that's me, an advanced sailor). I refuse to cater to the old ways. Sure, they've gotten mariners through generations of bad times. But running aground is serious business. I have to KNOW when it's low tide. No guesses based on outdated methodology.

I use the shopping cart method. Not everyone knows about it. In fact, I might be the only sailor advanced enough to utilize this method. But it is foolproof.

If you're walking down the gangplank and can see the shopping cart, the tide is too low to go to the pumping station. Simple, elegant, high tech.

4 comments:

Visit ToDay said...

Nice info
Thx in advance then

Regards,

Visit ToDay

EVK4 said...

Visit ToDay, this is good info isn't it? Do you have a sunken shopping cart at your marina also? You can use it to monitor tide levels!

Tillerman said...

That's a great system. I'm going to our local supermarket right now to "borrow" a shopping cart that I can place at the correct depth off the dock where I usually launch. How deep should it be for maximum effectiveness? Are some types of carts better than others? Do I need to anchor it down in any way?

bowsprite said...

I LOVE this!

Shopping carts littered on the riverbed we have, however, they are usually covered with litter, trash, detritus, flotsam and jetsam, and general visibility is about an inch below the surface of the water.

The few shopping carts we had in the Gowanus or Newtown Creeks have been dissolved already by the toxins, indicating not tide, but hull-dissolving powers of our canals and creeks.