How to interpret wave patterns

Ken Endean is a retired civil engineer and pilotage enthusiast who cruises a twin-keeled Sabre 27

Which way is the tide flowing, and how do we tell? We could look at a tidal diamond on a chart, or at the arrows in a tidal atlas, but these sources are not infallible, particularly near irregular coastlines where the streams may be deflected or even reverse direction.

It’s often helpful to go back to basics and simply look at the sea, beginning with the water around moored objects, although this may pose more questions. For instance, in photo 1 (above), the tide past the buoy is obviously rushing from right to left, but the moored yacht against the far shore is in a current flowing from left to right. This is where things get interesting, because that photo also shows that the ‘texture’ of the water surface changes between the buoy and the yacht. In the foreground, there is a fairly uniform carpet of small waves but near the yacht the surface has smooth patches, caused by turbulence. That area of water is an inshore eddy that is flowing counter to the main stream. It is unlikely to be shown by a chart’s tidal diamond, or even in a tidal atlas, but could be very helpful to any skipper who wants to cheat the tide.

For a closer