How to Read a Tide Chart for Speed Boats

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Albert Hedgepeth with Expert Village. Now we're going to talk a little about tide charts and why they're important. If you live near the ocean, and you're doing a lot of boating, it's really important to understand the tides, because they change every six hours. The water levels in the ocean recede and come back due to the gravitational pull of the moon, and as you'll see on this chart, that is one of the diagrams that are laid out, so you can understand when the moon is full and when it's quarter. The way that you read this chart is, you come right down the list, and you look first of all for the month that you're in. Then you want to go and find the date, and then you come across the line. The line usually, on most days, has four different numbers. The numbers are actually a representation of the time. They are depicted by AM and PM. It also will have an H or an L beside it. The H stands for high tide, and the L stands for low tide. Tides are important because in many locations, boat ramps, creeks, the inter-coastal waterway, and other water travel roadways, so to speak, change and fluctuate a lot with the tides. If you're putting your boat in a slip that has very low levels of water, and you have a certain draw, it's probably best to put your boat in the water or to pull it out at high tide."