NavList:

I've had the good fortune to get copies of some folios of a 16th century french mariner's almanac (actually translated into french from dutch).    In it, there are some tide tables.   Now, here's the issue - one imagines that a modern almanac would be usable for a year and could contain a list of tides for every harbor for every day, but that's rather prohibitive given the state of the art of printing in the 16th century.   

I was trying to figure out how tide information would be represented in an almanac like that, and guessed that it would be some table for each harbor that gives the tide phase relative to the meridian passage of the moon.    Much to my delight, when I inspected the almanac, I found that was precisely what they had.

Well, maybe it's obvious, but small things make me happy.    In any case, in addition to that table, there is a description of the direction of currents on the ebb and flood.   From what I know about the North Sea, there's a substantial "node" in the middle and a rotary tide, which I'm assuming gives rise to somewhat difficult to understand currents and they must be documented.

I was hoping someone on the list could point me in the direction of modern tide tables and also information about tide-induced currents for regions bordering the North Sea.

Best,

John H. 

PS There's some great material in the form of "advice to pilots" in here as well.