David Lock

We've all been brought up with the Beeb dishing out the Shipping Forecast 2 or 3 times a day. As a kid I assumed it was mainly for British fishing vessels. This was in the days before the Internet and satellite phones of course. It has to be the most boring thing on radio by a long shot.

But is it necessary in the days of the Internet? Plus the British fishing fleet is sadly nearly gone. Perhaps the Beeb should just give out severe weather warnings and major oil slicks to be on the safe side rather than go round the UK with unpronounceable weather areas?

Views?

dl

dpb

I think theyre are at least some fisherman out there still !

A 15 quid handheld radio is also still likely to be more reliable/sturdy than a laptop or phone ( connection payment required ) when the boats rocking in horizontal rain and your up to your armpits in fish guts

....i suspect.


Same for yachtsman really . Your getting it on Longwave , far away from iternet connection

GC8

Maybe it should be in Spanish?

Leslie

You are quite right dpb, its invaluable if you are in a ship!

Les

hodgy0_2

it is a thing of beauty imo

every word has a defined meaning (in relation to the weather) and a good sailor can build a weather chart from the information it contains

dpb

It might as well be in greek to the average landlubber im sure

(You do need to be able to be to interpret to get get anything out of it , where upon it becomes invaluble )

Jamie

The fishing fleet has not gone but is fading away the district fishing industry training school where i live are still doing RYA courses 16-24 so all is not lost

David Lock

OK, fair comments. Looks like we had better keep it then.

The forecast has an interesting mix of non-PC metric and imperial - perhaps to confuse the Spanish

The barometer is 1025 mm but with a visibility of 2 miles Then the wind is given as Storm Force 8, for example, but where does the 8 come from? As a kid it was the wind strength required to blow tiles off a roof or whatever. I assume it is a bit more scientific these days?

dl

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Friend of mine uses to see if its safe to cross from Bristol to Sharpness. Which if you catch it wrong is not too pleasent if you boat hasn't got enough oomph. He has a 250bhp Perkins in a Python 2 berth sea going cruiser, so I doubt its much of a problem - although it did originally have a 400bhp Chevy V8, but was bit too thirsty and it would break the speed limit on the river on tick-over, much to many fisherman's disgust

Leslie

The storm force is based on a spread of the wind speeds. The units are what we have been used to for all those years.

It is useful, I used to listen to it before I went fishing.

Les

RA Dunk

Having spent 14 years as a deep sea fisherman working at Rockall, Norway, Denmark, Shetland and all over the UK I can tell you the majority of fishing vessels still use it, but there is alot more sophisticated computer technology on the go.

Jamie

Who deleted this link http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/def...spx?level0=100