Tides and tide calculations

[Security man]

Hi guys,

I'm tryin to put a tide table in place for the south east coast, the usual fishing marks.
Now I know the 'approximate' times (roughly speaking) based on Wexford Harbour, but none of the online predictions appear to be consistent with any sort of time.

For example (GMT),;
Today Wexford is HW at 17.13, and Courtown is at 18.45 (Easytide data). Ok, so one says there is a difference of 1hr 32mins - Courtown being the later tide.
However, the prediction for Friday 21st, is Wexford 20.05, and courtown at 20.37 - only a difference of 32 minutes
(Daylight saving NOT applied to either).

When I do the same calculation for various fishing marks in the SE, there appears no consistency whatsoever.
Even the Irish-times newspaper give tides which are a 20min contradiction of easytide, now I'm wondering who to believe!
Can anyone suggest a proper online prediction, or know where there is a reliable chart for the area for reference?
Any help greatly appreciated.

[adam2040]

ok i am no tide expert but i think the variation between locations is due to the size of the tide i.e. big tide less variation. also the courtown tides have a mind of their own.

[gfkelly1969]

i never use easy tide,i did before and found it to be wrong by 2 hours,i use http://www.sailing.ie/inside/default.asp?pageId=506 for tides now and its spot on,it has a tide table for Dunmore East which you could use,all you have to do is work out how many minutes of a difference there is to your spot

[Security man]

Thanks for the link, gfk.
But still, its the actual time variants to the different marks is what I'm trying to work out...

Ok, so theres a difference in Courtown, as the tide apparently hardly ever moves - but it CAN'T be 30mins one day, and 1hr 32mins the next day.... that don't make sense to me..

[gfkelly1969]

read this article from http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A545438 One problem with the beaches around Courtown is that there is almost no tide. This is due to a peculiarity in the way the tidal currents flow into the Irish Sea. There is a 'fixed point' just off Courtown, where there is no tide at all. In Courtown, the difference between low and high tide is small and sometimes the tide only comes in once a day instead of twice.
maybe this might explain a bit,maybe its because some times it comes in twice and some times only once a day,could be hard to work out the tides for Courtown and near by areas maybe if you talk to some of the local fisher men they might be able to explain the tides a bit better