The shipping forecast is probably the closest thing we have in the modern age to a national epic. The institutions rhythms and rituals have changed little since it was first broadcast on New Years Day 1924: there is poetry in the daily litany and mystery in its terminology. The radios prayer, Carol Ann Duffy called it. For Seamus Heaney it was a sibilant penumbra.
The forecast reminds us were a maritime nation and its map binds us to our continent, covering not only our own coasts and waters but an area extending from Norway to Portugal to Iceland. There is democracy in its geography, where tiny Fair Isle carries as much heft as mighty Biscay while Lundy, a sliver of rock in the Bristol Channel, is equal in importance to the Irish Sea. And from the salty old seadog in his brine-encrusted fishing boat to the merchant banker on his yacht, the shipping forecast, all seafarers are equally reliant on it.
Of the four daily broadcasts by BBC Radio 4 on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, my favourite is in the early morning. Usually this one goes out at 05.20, but in our current emergency its broadcast at 05.33, those 13 minutes representing the only significant schedule shift since the service was suspended altogether during the second world war. Before this, no disaster, no crisis and certainly no Test match climax had shunted the iron horse of the schedule from its position.
While many prefer the cosy, late-night feel of the 00.48 forecast, all soothing nocturnal intimacy and somnolent talk of falling slowly, for me you cant beat being roused from sleep by the familiar rhythmic intonation of the pre-dawn broadcast. Every morning Im coaxed awake by a meteorological gazetteer of familiar names Tyne, Dogger, Fisher and cryptic crossword clues of forecast detail, on the face of it impenetrable but actually fairly straightforward. First theres the wind and its direction and predicted strength according to the Beaufort Scale, north-westerly five or six, followed by the weather conditions, rain later, and finally the visibility, good becoming moderate.
Theres reassurance in regularity. The forecast always progresses in the same order around its 31 sea areas, beginning with Viking off the coast of Norway and moving broadly clockwise, zigzagging across the North Sea, along the Channel, turning south towards the Iberian peninsula then tracing the Atlantic fringe back up to south-east Iceland.
For those not out at sea, its a journey to fire the imagination without lifting your head from the pillow, a 31-stop tour better measured in duvet togs than kilometres, an odyssey in the mind through familiar places Dover, Hebrides, Wight and locations that seem to defy conventional mapping: Fisher, Sole, North Utsire.
The shipping forecast is the closest I ever came to reading out poetry on the air
Not many people can say theyve been to Utsira. I have. North and south. (The island off south-west Norway has been officially spelled with an a since 1924, though neither North or South Utsire appeared in the shipping forecast until they were introduced in 1984.) Reached by a heaving, churning 70-minute ferry ride across some of the most tempestuous waters in northern Europe, Utsira wears its forecast fame lightly. Not many places are namechecked on the BBC eight times a day, but forecast familiarity hasnt inspired a flood of visitors. When I explained to the captain of the ferry why I was there (hed assumed that, with Utsira boasting Norways widest variety of avian life, I must be a birdwatcher) he blinked a couple of times, said OK, and climbed back up to the wheelhouse.
By chance I happened to be there the weekend Utsiras football club was holding its annual knees-up, and I wangled an invite. Fielding a team from a population of a little over 200 is achievement enough, but the impressive collection of trophies I saw in a cabinet suggested that on the football field at least, Utsira was punching above its weight.
They [the trophies] are all old, one of the players shouted into my ear above the music. The sea crossing to the island is very rough. Sometimes teams would arrive barely able to walk from the seasickness, so wed beat them easily. Then they all got together to complain. Now we have to play all our matches on the mainland and dont win anything any more.
Ive now travelled to, or through, all of the shipping forecasts 31 sea areas, which means the daily broadcast invocation conjures up my night on the lash with Utsiras footballers, along with many other faces and places to which I can return without getting wet.
In area Thames, for example, I was lucky enough, after a six-month visa application process, to visit the Principality of Sealand, since 1967 a self-declared independent nation on a former British gun emplacement in the North Sea. The platform on two vast concrete legs eight miles off Harwich looks like a North Sea Stonehenge. Arriving was unforgettable: Prince Michael of Sealand himself escorted me out there on a royal RIB and the micro-nation remains the only country in the world Ive been winched into. Once I was through immigration, the pizza delivery leaflet pinned to a corkboard represented one of the greatest examples of optimism Ive ever seen.
Im convinced that wherever you go, however unpromising or uninspiring a place might appear, youll always find something to make the visit worthwhile: a quirky piece of local history perhaps, or someone with a hell of a story to tell. Its a theory that has served me well wherever Ive been and Ive been to Stevenage and has only failed me once.
Shipping forecast area Fisher widens into the North Sea from a small stretch of the west coast of Jutland, northern Denmark. The only place to visit is the port of Hanstholm, where I spent a long weekend. A really long weekend during which I found nothing to do and nothing to see. Nobody hangs around Hanstholm; they roll off the overnight ferry from Norway and head straight off. Not me. My weekend there must have come close to contravening the part of the Geneva Convention dealing with sensory deprivation. To give you an idea, according to someone I spoke to, the name Hanstholm is derived from an old Norse word meaning islet of the glove. The story goes that many years ago a woman once dropped a glove there.
Fortunately the broadcast sweeps me past Fisher and on to other memories, other places I can revisit without leaving home. There was the time in Galicia when I sat for hours and watched the sun set over the Atlantic from the tip of Cape Finisterre from finis terrae, the end of the earth, a holy place since way before Christianity. It gave its name to the sea area until 2002, when the Met Office renamed it FitzRoy to avoid confusion with the French and Spanish forecasts, whose Finisterre is of different dimensions. FitzRoy is named for Vice-admiral Robert FitzRoy, best-known as captain of the Beagle when Charles Darwin was aboard, but who in 1854 founded what became the Met Office, set up specifically to provide weather information for seafarers.
As the area forecast reaches its conclusion I think of how I once stood on a black beach at the foot of a black mountain looking out at a grey sea under a grey sky, a monochrome vista that was the legacy of a 1973 volcanic eruption on the Westman Islands (Vestmannaeyjar) off southern Iceland. Standing on land thats younger than you are is a sobering way to finish any journey.
For all the poetic inspiration of its curious place names and recondite meteorological phrasing, the shipping forecast is there to save lives. The number of disasters and tragedies averted thanks to sailors and skippers being made aware of impending storms and high seas is impossible to calculate. The reassurance of its rhythmic incantation goes much further though, way beyond the seafarer. The daily recital wakens and nurtures something deep within us, a maritime people, its poetry of protection an evocative reminder that not everything about being an island nation is insular or inward-looking. The beauty of its composition and delivery serves only to elevate the forecast further in our national consciousness.
The shipping forecast is the closest I ever came to reading out poetry on the air, the BBC broadcaster Charlotte Green once told me and she should know, having been effectively the voice of the forecast for years. Theres a real appeal about it, even if you dont know anything about the sea and dont know what the terms mean. Its absolutely mesmerising.
Charlie Connelly is author of Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round The Shipping Forecast (Little, Brown)
Read the original post:
Moderate becoming good: my journey to every place in the shipping forecast - The Guardian
- High Seas Forecast (Tropical Atlantic) [Last Updated On: June 10th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 10th, 2016]
- International waters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: June 10th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 10th, 2016]
- high seas | maritime law | Britannica.com [Last Updated On: June 10th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 10th, 2016]
- Radiofax Charts - New Orleans [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2016]
- High Seas Alliance | highseasalliance.org [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2016]
- High Seas Fleet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2016]
- Web Design & Mobile App Developer San Francisco CA | HIGH SEAS [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2016]
- knit/lab high seas - Kieran Foley [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2016]
- Protecting Ocean Life on the High Seas - Pew Trusts [Last Updated On: June 27th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 27th, 2016]
- Convention on the High Seas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: June 29th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 29th, 2016]
- Ultima Online: High Seas - UOGuide, the Ultima Online ... [Last Updated On: July 3rd, 2016] [Originally Added On: July 3rd, 2016]
- High Seas - Science NetLinks [Last Updated On: July 10th, 2016] [Originally Added On: July 10th, 2016]
- High Seas Fleet - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: November 12th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 12th, 2016]
- United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [Last Updated On: November 27th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 27th, 2016]
- Ocean Prediction Center-Coastal, Offshore and High Seas ... [Last Updated On: December 15th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 15th, 2016]
- Global High Seas Marine Preserve A non-profit dedicted ... [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2017]
- New centre for high seas visitors in Angus - The Courier - The Courier [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- Naval Presence on High Seas Underscored - Financial Tribune [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- Pirates Face Push Back On The High Seas - American Media Institute [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- Queen Mary 2 to Host High Fashion on the High Seas - Cruise Hive - Cruise Hive [Last Updated On: February 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 13th, 2017]
- Nigeria Rescues Oil Tanker From High-Seas Pirates - OilPrice.com [Last Updated On: February 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 13th, 2017]
- High Tea on the High Sea by Searoad Ferries Services [Last Updated On: February 13th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 13th, 2017]
- Conflict and Diplomacy on the High Seas - Focus News [Last Updated On: February 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2017]
- Cabin cam shows the hilarious frustration of rolling on the high seas - Pickle [Last Updated On: February 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2017]
- Ransomware Gangs Have Become the High-Seas Pirates of the Internet - On the Wire (blog) [Last Updated On: February 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 14th, 2017]
- Suspect in high-seas homicides hospitalized, putting case on hold - Sacramento Bee [Last Updated On: February 15th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 15th, 2017]
- To Boldly Cruise Where No Couple Has Cruised Before - Bloomberg [Last Updated On: February 15th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 15th, 2017]
- Sailing the high seas: Top cruises for first-timers, families and excursions in 2017 - Malay Mail Online [Last Updated On: February 15th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 15th, 2017]
- All aboard for Cosplay on the high seas - The New Paper [Last Updated On: February 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 17th, 2017]
- Star-Studded Broadway on the High Seas 8 Sets Sail Feb. 17 - Playbill.com [Last Updated On: February 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 17th, 2017]
- The Cold War returns to the high seas - CNN [Last Updated On: February 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 17th, 2017]
- 'The internet is like the high seas' - Deutsche Welle [Last Updated On: February 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 18th, 2017]
- Greg McQuade discovers life on the high seas aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower - wtvr.com [Last Updated On: February 18th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 18th, 2017]
- In Dramatic High Seas Rescue, Four Fishermen Rescued By Good Samaritans Off Galveston, Texas, Coast - Patch.com [Last Updated On: February 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 19th, 2017]
- Escape to the high seas at the National Aviary - NEXTpittsburgh [Last Updated On: February 22nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 22nd, 2017]
- Scapa Flow German High Seas Fleet scrap sites explored - The ... - The Orcadian [Last Updated On: February 23rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 23rd, 2017]
- Two boats towed in harbor in high seas - Cayman Compass [Last Updated On: February 24th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 24th, 2017]
- Take to the high seas with Condor Sailing Adventures - Pensacola News Journal [Last Updated On: February 25th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 25th, 2017]
- Aging high-seas murder suspect out of hospital and back in court - Sacramento Bee [Last Updated On: February 28th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 28th, 2017]
- Masters of the waves talk of high seas, thrills & spills - The New Indian Express [Last Updated On: March 1st, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 1st, 2017]
- Campbell River Sea Cadet off to England to hit the high seas - Campbell River Mirror [Last Updated On: March 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 4th, 2017]
- Survival on the high seas (From The Northern Echo) - The Northern Echo (registration) [Last Updated On: March 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 4th, 2017]
- Industry 4.0 on the High Seas - MarineLink [Last Updated On: March 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 4th, 2017]
- New Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Trailer Brings Us More Action On The High Seas! - LRM Online (press release) (blog) [Last Updated On: March 4th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 4th, 2017]
- Eco-warriors meet government authority on Ballina's high seas ... - Echonetdaily [Last Updated On: March 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 6th, 2017]
- Tech on the high seas: Fred Olsen IT chief chats cloud, connectivity and security - www.v3.co.uk [Last Updated On: March 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 6th, 2017]
- Why newbie Drusilla is preparing for life on the high seas - The Wharf - The Wharf [Last Updated On: March 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 7th, 2017]
- Bhang Travel Inc. Brings Cannabis Networking to the High Seas - PR Web (press release) [Last Updated On: March 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 8th, 2017]
- Drama on the high seas: East Kilbride couple reveal dramatic rescue after boat sinks in Gulf - Scottish Daily Record [Last Updated On: March 8th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 8th, 2017]
- French, Irish yacht sailors survive high seas off Australia's coast - TRT World [Last Updated On: March 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 10th, 2017]
- Journey through the high seas - Manila Standard - The Standard [Last Updated On: March 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 11th, 2017]
- High Seas Yacht Service | Specializing in Marine Propulsion Alignments [Last Updated On: March 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 11th, 2017]
- High Seas Adventure With Bunn And Molina's 'X-Men: Blue' - ComicsAlliance [Last Updated On: March 17th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 17th, 2017]
- Fun on the high seas - Dallas Voice [Last Updated On: March 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 19th, 2017]
- Freedom on high seas - nation.lk - The Nation Newspaper [Last Updated On: March 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 19th, 2017]
- Limerick cancer survivor returns to the high seas - Limerick Post [Last Updated On: March 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 19th, 2017]
- At ease on high seas, woman pilot storms into male bastion | Kolkata ... - Times of India [Last Updated On: March 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 19th, 2017]
- Meeting on High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean - The Arctic Journal [Last Updated On: March 19th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 19th, 2017]
- Shell Looks to Lower The Cost of Drilling on The High Seas - Chem.Info [Last Updated On: March 23rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 23rd, 2017]
- Indians work on high seas but yet to take a cruise | Goa News ... - Times of India [Last Updated On: March 23rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 23rd, 2017]
- Cubans Still Fleeing on the High Seas, Months After Obama Nixes Wet Foot/Dry Foot - Breitbart News [Last Updated On: March 23rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 23rd, 2017]
- Narcosis Brings Terror Comes to the High Seas on March 28 - Dread Central [Last Updated On: March 23rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 23rd, 2017]
- Duncan high takes class to the 'high seas' - Duncan Banner [Last Updated On: March 23rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 23rd, 2017]
- Cardboard vessels take to the 'high seas' at MCA - News Item [Last Updated On: March 27th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 27th, 2017]
- Skating a halfpipe on the high seas - GrindTV [Last Updated On: March 29th, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 29th, 2017]
- SEAS: The Art Of Sound Perfection [Last Updated On: March 31st, 2017] [Originally Added On: March 31st, 2017]
- Helping save a life on the high seas warmed the heart of one Craig woman - Craig Daily Press [Last Updated On: April 2nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 2nd, 2017]
- Watch: Impressive High Seas Evacuation from Tall Ship - GCaptain [Last Updated On: April 2nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 2nd, 2017]
- A dining odyssey on the high seas - Detroit Free Press [Last Updated On: April 2nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 2nd, 2017]
- High Stakes for High-Seas Gaming - TravelPulse [Last Updated On: April 2nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 2nd, 2017]
- High life on the high seas - THE BUSINESS TIMES [Last Updated On: April 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 3rd, 2017]
- Captain Cannonball sails the high seas as a pirate - Destin.com - Destin Log and Walton Log [Last Updated On: April 3rd, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 3rd, 2017]
- Real 'Pirate Women' On The High Seas Of Old | On Point - WBUR - WBUR [Last Updated On: April 5th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 5th, 2017]
- Trekr Racing makes its debut on the high seas - Washington Blade - Washington Blade [Last Updated On: April 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 7th, 2017]
- No clean boats on the high seas | Kochi News - Times of India - Times of India [Last Updated On: April 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 7th, 2017]
- Cruise Operators Continue to Hide Behind the Death on the High ... - Cruise Law News [Last Updated On: April 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 7th, 2017]
- Master of the high seas: Pomp, patriotism and politics as Navy's newest ship gets a name - Wicked Local Wellesley [Last Updated On: April 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 10th, 2017]
- Young family moves from high desert to life on the high seas - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel [Last Updated On: April 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 10th, 2017]
- Master of the high seas: Pomp, patriotism and politics as Navy's ... - Wicked Local Quincy [Last Updated On: April 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 12th, 2017]
- Orphans turn sailors for fun day on the high seas - Pattaya Mail [Last Updated On: April 14th, 2017] [Originally Added On: April 14th, 2017]