Tidal Current Speed

[captxtina]

Originally Posted by sailingdog

I believe the tidal currents are affected by the geography far more than the tidal heights are. Also, the Cape Cod Canal is affected by the tides in two locations, Cape Cod Bay on the east and Buzzards Bay on the west, so the rule of twelveths isn't going to be easy to apply in any form.

Ah, okay. I had a sneaking suspicion when I reviewed the direction of the tides within the two bays (a couple weeks ago), I thought that may jostle the waters in the canal a bit. Thanks for the confirmation. I've been through it once with current going with me, and I saw a sailboat motoring through in the opposing direction struggling. I just wanted to see how much of a threshold we had around the slack water to play with in case we got delayed, or got there early. I'll just stick to the slack water and friendly currents, then.

cheers.

[Whampoa]

What boat speed are you using in your planning?

[chuck5499]

for planning purposes i use 5k - soulmates is a 40' jeanneau ds 40 -
chuck and svsoulmates
ki4sry
on

[Whampoa]

Sorry for the confusion Chuck, my question was for captxtina who I mistakenly thought was the OP.

[Boasun]

Most of us will plan to be at the entrance of most place a half hour before Slack water. This has been the standard for a few centuries now.
You go up to Alaska around the Aleutian Islands you will be finding seven knots or better flowing between them during max current.
And in the GoM, going into Port O'Conners you will find that the max Ebb is over five knots also. And I am sure that there are many other places in this world where you need to be careful on your approach to a harbor entrance.