Yachtsman's Tidal Atlas - Central Channel and The Solent

Publisher: Adlard Coles Nautical, 2003 (rep) £ 9.99

The question is: how does this compare with the Admiralty Tidal Stream Atlases for the English Channel and Solent(NP250 and NP337) which most readers will be familiar with using?

There is one advantage: both Central Channel and Solent are covered in the one volume.   Apart from that, though the format is similar, with hourly flow charts, the Admiralty version is better.  It covers a wider area, the whole of the English Channel not just the central section, and is easier to use on two counts.

Firstly, the Reeve-Fowkes version unfortunately uses High Water Cherbourg as the basis of the tidal stream charts while other navigational instruments in use, charts and nautical almanac, will almost certainly present tidal data based on an English standard port, probably Dover or Portsmouth.  This inevitably will cause the navigator added mental strain and potentially lead to errors through having to work with two separate High Water reference times.

The second drawback is that single mean values are given for tidal stream rates instead of separate neap and spring rates as in the Admiralty version.  This means that it is not possible to make a quick mental interpolation between neap and spring rates, as when using the Admiralty atlas, but instead the rather fussy interpolation table must be used every time.

Tidal height information is also included for a number of locations within the charted area but these do not really provide anything useful beyond what is already available from tidal height data in the almanac tide tables.    BMF

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