Slack tide

"Slack water" redirects here. For the Awake episode, see Slack Water.

Slack tide or slack water is the short period in a body of tidal water when the water is completely unstressed, and there is no movement either way in the tidal stream. It occurs before the direction of the tidal stream reverses.[1] Slack water can be estimated using a tidal atlas or the tidal diamond information on a nautical chart.[2] The time of slack water, particularly in constricted waters, does not occur at high and low water,[3] and in certain areas, such as Primera Angostura, the ebb may run for up to three hours after the water level has started to rise. Similarly, the flood may run for up to three hours after the water has started to fall. In 1884, Thornton Lecky illustrated the phenomenon with an inland basin of infinite size, connected to the sea by a narrow mouth. Since the level of the basin is always at mean sea level, the flood in the mouth starts at half tide, and its velocity is at its greatest at the time of high water, with the strongest ebb occurring conversely at low water.[4]

  1. ^ The American Practical Navigator, Chapter 9:Tides and Tidal Currents, page 139. Accessed 3 September 2011.
  2. ^ Sport Diving, British Sub Aqua Club, ISBN 0-09-163831-3, page 167
  3. ^ The American Practical Navigator, Chapter 9:Tides and Tidal Currents, pp.141-142. Accessed 19 December 2013.
  4. ^ Squire Thornton Stratford Lecky; William Allingham (1918). Wrinkles in Practical Navigation. G. Philip & son. p. 285.