First of all, I am not sure any tide watch is good for places like 75 miles up the Hudson River from new york city, even if you can adjust the time for high tide.
Reading in between the lines, you pick out a nearby beach and enter an offset time for your launch by looking up the time difference on the internet.
I have not seen a watch where you just enter the high tide time and it computes everything from that.
Is the offset always constant from the beach that the tide watch is using as a reference point?
Secondly, I want a watch which can show the tides at the site where it was adjusted for the next 7 to 14 days.
Thirdly it would be nice if there was some kind of alarm at halfway to low tide.
What would you recommend?
your phone
Your android cell phone in a waterproof container
Hudson River
– Last Updated: Jun-26-11 10:29 AM EST –
First, have you looked for tide charts for the harbors up the Hudson River? The easiest way to do what you want would seem to be to start from the nearest harbor. The data is a little less robust for the Hudson than it used to be in terms of how many sites have their own charts, but we can find pretty close charts with easily used offsets like 20 minutes for launch points well over 100 miles up from NYC harbor. The first dam is at Troy so it stops there, but there are charts for up to Port of Albany.
As to the idea of a standard offset, seasonal and other time-driven changes in tides and local underwater terrain tend to create rather fickle results. The situation up the Hudson is not as messy as for Cape Cod where you are SOL unless you have Eldridge's, but you still have to pay attention day by day to get it precise.
You can do this with an app, and if so there are apps for both Iphone and Android smart phones. But just getting to know your area and recording what you see is probably a better method. It seems like you are going for a somewhat complicated and pretty expensive solution.
Was looking for watches, not tables
I still want a watch…because there is the Connecticut River, Housatonic, etc…I was just using the Hudson as an example.
I would rather not bring out an android phone when there is an alternative of just glancing at my wrist while I am paddling.
Did some research…
…last year looking for pretty much the same thing. Casio, Rip Curl, and Nixon all had decent offerings, but they all had preprogrammed (nearest beach) tide tables. What I wanted was built-in GPS so I could find the tide at my current location without having to do the calculations myself. I didn’t find a watch that had GPS/Tide capabilities, so I continue to use my iPhone.
Good luck.
Low Tech Alternative
If I have this right, you want to be able to glance down at something while paddling and tell where you are in a tide state.
Suggestion that doesn’t cost a ton - look up the tide changes before you paddle and write the times on your boat with a grease marker (assuming the front deck isn’t too cluttered), or on a paper that is in a good zip lock type bag on your front deck. Wear a water-resistant watch or have one clipped on deck that has a time you can see. Personally I find Timex Expedition and Ironman ones to be very hardy and available on sale.
This is what we do when we are on the ocean, someplace that we tend to care a lot about tides because of landings and the place we stay has a major river mouth adjacent. It works fine.
GPS will do that
Most handheld GPS will use your position, and pre-loaded tide tables to find the nearest local tide prediction for you. It’s a little bigger than a watch, but it offers the “at a glance” convenience that you’re looking for.
If you want to keep it simpler (and probably increase your awareness of your surroundings) you could look up the tide prediction for a specific station before you leave each day. Write those down, so you can see them while on the water (inside a chart case, in a small waterproof notebook, grease pen on deck, etc).
no such thing
there is no such thing (yet) AFAIK
Ok
Well I did some more research and found that some watches just use moon phase for tide calculation and some use a limited set of beaches.
The internet is great for tide data because in most cases it is based on actual recordings (tides.info), but you can put it on your wrist.
I am going to get a returnable cheapie and offset the high tide time according to internet data and see how how well it tracks over a couple of weeks.
I was just wondering if someone had tried this already.
Charts, bleh
see tides.info for tides up and down the hudson, and all over the world.
Yes GPS works
Yah I have a Colorado 400C that was terrible (bad data and dst offset problem) before the updated the software, but I dont always bring it.
+1 write key times on boat dec
Then you look at boat, look at watch, job done. If you have a plastic boat you can likely find some film to apply that is better for writing with a grease pencil.
Grease (china marker) pencil on deck
I also, when paddling on the sea, usually write the time of launch and high and low tide(s) for that day and locale on the deck of my boat so I can see at a glance. Not as often for the Hudson - though I do usually check and note the tide.
Tide/current card
Before each trip I print out a small card which has a table with tidal currents and high/low tides. I mark certain things that I feel are important in bold (such as high tide/low tide times, times of slack current, etc). I then laminate this card, hole punch it, and clip it to the deck with my chart.
Gadgets are nice, but sometimes the old-fashioned way can be a better alternative, in my opinion.