NavList:

John H., regarding the expression "age of the tide", you wrote:
"It's not used so much these days"

Heh. Yeah, that's an understatement. This is one of those technical terms that has faded away, not merely because of the passage of time and changes in the analysis of tides, but also because it was such a rotten term in the first place! Who would ever guess what it means just from the words that compose the expression? I would bet money that if you offered a multiple choice question: "which of these four tidal phenomena is referred to as the 'age of the tide'?" and listed a variety of choices, most mariners and other people with some practical interest in the tides would guess no better than at random that this was the lag of the Spring Tides after the peak of the astronomical driving force. A similarly unfathomable express is the "establishment of the tide".

For your entertainment, here is a little map showing the delay of the Spring Tides relative to New Moon/Full Moon which I put together back in 2005 or maybe 2006.

-FER

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