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Tide Stream Data - North Cape


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1 hour ago, bigal.nz said:

Where do you find tide stream data for north cape - or at least a way to work out which way the current is flowing at a given date and time?

Thanks

Al

 

you could try having a play with this and comparing various locations.

https://tides.niwa.co.nz/map

need to use the Search function for North Cape or Cape Reinga

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1 hour ago, bigal.nz said:

Yeah that's awesome - found that in the app now too. Thank you,

2.8 Knots seems to be the highest current value I could see predicted in the next few days.

That's probably only the tide not the ocean current. You'd need to add the two together to find the total as ocean currents might be significant around Reinga (and amplified by the shallow water, which the forecast model might not include).

There are ocean current forecasts available from saildocs.com which you can download as grib files and view using the grib plugin on OpenCPN. You have to really dig into the documentation for saildocs to find how to request the currents forecast but they are very useful for ocean passages. Just be aware that the forecasts are for quite large grid squares so they will give you the general situation that there's a strong east-west current around the cape (for example only, I didn't check) but not the detail of what that does when squeezed into a small shallow area of a few kilometers from land.

If in doubt, go right out! (But if you don't have a go, you'll never know ;) )

 

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18 hours ago, syohana said:

That's probably only the tide not the ocean current. You'd need to add the two together to find the total as ocean currents might be significant around Reinga (and amplified by the shallow water, which the forecast model might not include).

There are ocean current forecasts available from saildocs.com which you can download as grib files and view using the grib plugin on OpenCPN. You have to really dig into the documentation for saildocs to find how to request the currents forecast but they are very useful for ocean passages. Just be aware that the forecasts are for quite large grid squares so they will give you the general situation that there's a strong east-west current around the cape (for example only, I didn't check) but not the detail of what that does when squeezed into a small shallow area of a few kilometers from land.

If in doubt, go right out! (But if you don't have a go, you'll never know ;) )

 

I have sat for almost  complete tide off Cape maria Van Dieman when heading for North cape, owing to a mis calculation, theoretically doing close to 6 knots through the water but with a across the ground at a speed of 1/2 +-  a knot for 2/3 of the tide.

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Guess best to give it a wide berth. 6 knots of current must be when the ocean currents and the tidal stream all come together.

Navionics shows the tidal stream never staying in the same direction for long, but on average only peaking at 2-2.5 knots.

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Actually worth noting that I am talking about North Cape - not Cape Reinga which looks to be considerably worse.
 

NIWA were happy to help (but it doesn't cover North Cape)

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