Oh how that 'voice', that calm and measured voice of the Shipping Forecast will be missed when it's switched off for good says Paul
Wonderful things aren’t they? Weather apps. The ones you carry on your phone inviting a stab of your finger for all the world’s weather to flash up on the screen. A minor miracle, isn’t it?
But for how much longer? Today’s miracle soon becomes tomorrow’s antiquity and it can happen very quickly in ways we can’t imagine. If we could forsee them, of course, we’d be living a Bill Gates lifestyle but as that seems unlikely you and I will just have to hang around and wait for the next big thing to come along. And it will surely come.
Lots of minor miracles have appeared in my sailing life, most of them now dead and buried. The most advanced bit of kit on my first little boat was a Seafarer Echo Sounder which caused a diode to come alight as it spun round a dial against which you could read the depth. It rapidly became a ‘must buy’ but within a decade or so we’d moved on. And then came the promise of never being lost at sea again with the Seafix Radio Direction Finder. I made many trips to Ireland in those days, eagerly tuning in, hoping to hear a few dots and dashes from the Mizen Head radio beacon. I’m still waiting. Dead and buried now is the Seafix, and hardly mourned, but it was big in its day, like the apps are now.
But amongst the many support systems that have helped us over the years, one stands out as a survivor – the Shipping Forecast. I can’t count the number of romantically-driven writers and poets who have celebrated this apparently bland little five minute recitation of 31 sea areas. I salute it too, for being the most concise bit of safety equipment we have ever been offered, and all for free.
To merely find out what the wind is going to do tomorrow is a waste of a shipping forecast. It has more to offer. With a pencil and a cheap little radio tuned to long-travelling, long wave frequencies, you can draw yourself a crude but useful weather chart. Then, if it said Wight, Portland, westerly 3-4, and a glance at that ad-hoc chart noted an angry low in Shannon, deepening rapidly, moving eastwards and fast, you can look forward to a decent trip across to Cherbourg, but likely a hell of a flog to get back. Much more satisfying, and educative, working that out for yourself rather than having an app rob you of all the pleasure.
The reports from stations often put things into perspective; you may be conv
