To find the tides at a given location, you'll need to use the Tide Tables
for the appropriate region. The tide tables provide tidal information in the Daily Pages for a certain number
of sites within a designated region. These sites are referred to as Reference Stations, and tidal information
for every day of the year is listed in the Daily Pages.
The tide tables also allow you to find the tidal information at hundreds of additional stations,
known as Subordinate Stations because to find their tidal information, you must apply a correction to the
reference station data.
Before you begin solving for tides, first set up a table like the one at right, with the time and height of high and
low tides across the top, and Reference, Corrections, and Subordinate station along the side.
Next, in the back pages of the Tide Tables you'll find the Index to Stations. Look up the Index Number of the station
you are seeking. If the station has an * and a page number in parenthesis next to the name, lucky you because this is a reference
station and you won't need to correct, you can just go straight to the Daily Pages and find your info.
Using your Index Number, go into Table 2 - Tidal Differences and Other Constants, and under the "Differences" column,
note the corrections from your subordinate station to the reference station. These should fall right into the table you set
up before, in the "Corrections" row. If you find that under "Differences" your correction reads "Daily Predictions," your
station is a reference station and you can go straight to the Daily Pages.
Still within the "Differences" column of Table 2, look up the column until you come across a line that reads "On .....
page..." The station referenced in this line will be your Reference station. For example, if your subordinate station is Port
Wentworth, you would look up the column and find that your reference station would be Savannah on page 104.
Next, turn to the appropriate daily page for your reference station, find the date in question and find the times and
heights of tides as desired, noting them in the Reference Station row of your table.
The last step is to simply add or subtract the corrections to or from the reference station data to find the data for
the subordinate station. If your height correction has an * next to it instead of a + or -, you will multiply the reference
station data by your correction rather than adding or subtracting.
If you need to correct for daylight savings (Mar-Oct), simply add an hour to the reference station times before
adding in the corrections.
