Sea areas Fitzroy, German Bight and Faeroes: what’s in a name? – henriettamckervey October 17, 2014 Sea areas Fitzroy, German Bight and Faeroes: what’s in a name? In 1955 the countries bordering the North Sea decided that sea area Heligoland should henceforth be called – drum roll, please – German Bight. It made sense, they reckoned, seeing as German Bight was already the name those on its other side used for this area. And so it was done. Exit stage left for the curiously elegant Heligoland, and enter German Bight, which sounds like a nasty rash. As Heligoland did before it, sea area German Bight runs alongside the coast of Denmark. It goes from Dan Helder right at the tippety-top of the Hook of Holland to Esbjerg on the west Jutland coast. Following its path on a map I noticed a fantastically named selection of towns and areas: Borkum, Krummhorn, Wangerland, Norderney.

(Norderney would be a good name for Fermanagh, I think, if for some reason Northern Ireland decided to hitch itself to the name-changing bandwagon.) There is a German island in this area called Sylt, described by travel writer Charlie Connolly in his brilliant book Attention All Shipping as a name that sounds ‘like someone accidentally swallowing a peach stone’. It’s according to the Danish tourist board so I’ll allow some bias, but West Jutland has some of the most beautiful nature in Denmark. Okay, the website concedes with an online shrug; fair enough. It’s not all tiny waves and the pitter-patter of smooth pebbles: the dramatic coastline of this, the ‘windswept west’ is shaped by the ‘uncompromising North Sea’. What I hadn’t realised until I started The General Synopsis At Midnight is that Heligoland is a real place, not just a) the former shipping forecast sea area and b) that Massive Attack album from a few years back. It’s two real places in fact, as it refers to two islands. If only there had been a clue in the name.

Formerly both a Danish and British colony and now German, Heligoland is a small archipelago of islands in the southeastern corner of the North Sea, three hours sailing time from Germany. Sorry, the uncompromising North Sea. The islands themselves aren’t immune from name changes: Heligoland was once known as Heyligeland or ‘holy land’. Imagine the confusion that must have caused in medieval travel agents. Considering it is merely two small islands with a small population, Heligoland has had a traumatic life. It’s been British, Danish and German (‘Deutschland Uber Alles’ was written here). It’s been abandoned, nearly destroyed and rebuilt. It was the scene of a major naval battle of WWI – the First Battle of Heligoland Bight took place on August 28th 1914 – and a major air battle early on in WWII – yes, you’ve got it, the Battle of Heligoland Bight. The image up top is a postcard of the First Battle from the scrapbook of Leading Signalman George Smith, then on board HM Destroyer Forester. During a period of uninhabitation after WWII, the islands were used for bombing practice by the British.

This included ‘the Big Bang’, a 6,700 tonne explosion – speaking of Massive Attacks – in 1947. Apparently the intention wasn’t to destroy the islands, and though I’m not yet a fully qualified munitions expert, it’s hard not to believe there wouldn’t have been an ‘ah, sure what harm’ attitude had the Bang been Big enough to take Heligoland out completely. As it was, the explosion shook the core of the bigger island to a depth of several miles down and changed its shape. Heligoland is now German again (for now), yet one of its most significant naval stories has an Irish connection thanks to Admiral Thomas McNamara Russell. Born in County Clare in 1740, his career in the British Navy included active participation in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic War. That’s a lot of war by anyone’s standards. His biggest success is said to be his taking possession of Heligoland after Denmark came into the Napoleonic War on the side of the French in 1809.

The names of some of the ships under his command during what was a very long and distinguished career read like a roll call of British we’ll-show-Johnny-Foreigner attitude: The Vengeance, The Dictator, The Centurion. I’m not quite sure how his other ships the HMS Ferret and HMS Terrier fit in with this, and I like to picture the Admiral rolling up to the docks and rubbing his hands together in happy anticipation of an all-cutlasses-blaring adventure on the shiny new frigate Doomster, only to find the lads apologetically unfurling the sails on a nut-brown HMS Squirrel Nutkin instead. Of course as name changes go, the smooth and tear-free ‘bye-bye Heligoland and hi-de-hi to German Bight’ pales into insignificance when compared with the switch from Finisterre to Fitzroy. Sea area Fitzroy’s coastline is relatively small considering its size. It touches land from Puerto de Vega in the Spanish Asturias around to a point just south of Porto in north-west Portugal.

Follow Fitzroy’s invisible sea boundary straight north and up along the westerly line of the Plymouth and Lundy sea areas and you will eventually hit sand in County Wexford, at the point where our old friend Fastnet meets sea area Lundy. (Not far inland from here is a road with the curious name Lane Of Stones.) In 2002 an international accord between the UK, France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco agreed to change the name of sea area Finisterre. Its name derived from the Spanish finis terre, ‘the end of the earth’. It was confusing, the Spanish argued, seeing as they already had an area of the same name themselves, and the waters in question bordered Spain, not the UK. Their pronouncement wasn’t followed with the Spanish version of na-na-na-na-na, but I bet they were thinking it. And so the Met Office firstly had to find a new name for Finisterre, and then agree how to pronounce it (FITZ-Roy won the day, beating off stiff competition from Fitz-ROY). Apart from those optimists who saw this as a glorious opportunity to make puns along the ‘God rest her Sole’ lines, people took its renaming rather badly.

The BBC website on February 2nd 2002 wrote an obituary: RIP Finisterre, which began; ‘FINISTERRE shipping forecast sea area, a familiar friend taken away from us after a lifetime of service.’ The Liverpool Daily Post newspaper launched a campaign to try to save the name. The letterboxes of The Times and Telegraph were stuffed full with middle-England outrage. A woman from Tyneside who together with her sister had between them named their children Shannon, Tyne and Bailey, complained to the BBC R4 Today programme, ‘Fitzroy sounds more like a Doberman dog than a sea area.’ The westernmost peninsula of mainland Europe, Cape Finisterre (that’s a little bit of its coast in the photo) is the final destination for many pilgrims on the Santiago De Compostela, the Way of Saint James. (Familiar to David Lodge fans as the route Tubby Passmore takes in Therapy when he decides to follow his former sweetheart Maureen on her walking pilgrimage.) It was the Romans who came up with its name, obviously convinced that no way could be any more terre after this bit here. Finis. Its coast is known as the Costa da Morte, the Coast of Death.

The hypnotic, evocative beauty of the word Finisterre does make its substitution a tough one, but it’s hard to argue with a decision that celebrates Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy. A skilled seafarerer who also put in a spell as Governor of New Zealand, one of Fitzroy’s many claims to fame is that aged only 23 he captained the HMS Beagle on its expedition to Tierra del Fuego and the Southern Cone. On board too was a gentleman by the name of Charles Darwin, and a young hydrographer called Beaufort. I wonder what ever happened to them? Reputed to have a terrible temper, on the five-year voyage with Darwin, Fitzroy’s nickname was ‘hot coffee’. Having retired from travelling because of ill-health, in 1854 he was appointed Meteorological Statist to the Board of Trade, which thanks to his pioneering work became the Meteorological Office. Five years later, a particularly violent storm sank The Royal Charter with the loss of hundreds of lives. It was on its sixth journey from Australia to Liverpool. There’s a very moving contemporary report here , and a selection of retrieved artifacts are on display at the Merseyside Maritime Museum .

Amidst concerns about the ever-increasing business of shipping lanes, he began to develop charts that would allow weather predictions to be made. To speed matters up, he established 24 weather stations around the UK. Information was sent from these stations to London using Morse Code. Not only was it his idea to publish forecasts in daily newspapers, the very term weather forecast was his. Impoverished thanks to the cost of his research, Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy died by suicide in 1865. He was only 59. The names of the sea areas of the Shipping Forecast are derived from – among other things – sandbanks, estuaries, islets and towns. Fitzroy is the only one named for a person. I think it was well worth the switch from Finisterre, because it’s thanks to Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy that we have a shipping forecast to listen to at all. And that was the end of the end of the world. —- A postscript that’s more to do with changes of line-up than name, but still… Two years ago today Ireland beat the Faroe Islands 4-1 in the 2014 World Cup Qualifiers.

Sea area Faeroes first appeared on the shipping forecast map in 1932 and has borders with sea areas Southeast Iceland, Hebrides, Bailey and Fair Isle. (You can read about my trip to sea area Fair Isle here .) A landlubber connection between Ireland and The Faroe Islands is former Republic of Ireland football manager, Brian Kerr. Between 1997 and 2005 he managed first the Republic of Ireland Under 20’s, and then our national team. He went on to manage the Faroe Islands’ team in 2009 and became so popular that his departure two years later didn’t go down at all well: then defender Alti Gregersen told RTE the squad were ‘willing to die’ for him. As the country crest suggests, these are people with strong opinions. Apart from five men who were signed to Danish or Icelandic teams, when he took over the job initially, the balance of his squad were part-time footballers.

In a newspaper interview he said: “We have four carpenters, at least six full-time students – one of them had to fly to Copenhagen and back for an exam this week – two policemen, an accountant, one fella works in a sports shop, two teachers, Andreas works in a bowling alley, and he’s doing a bit of carpentry as well. Simun is full-time in Iceland, Suni works in a fish factory, I think Frodi’s a builder, Jakup is a teacher but he’s on the town council as well, he’s like a TD . That’s kind of the run of it. The pool is quite limited, there’s no one at Milan we’ve missed out on. The Granny Rule isn’t much help either, the Faroese haven’t been huge at emigration.” Emigration. Now there’s something the Irish, in common with many of the Shipping Forecast countries, have been good at.

Why hearing the shipping forecast makes me optimistic Why hearing the shipping forecast makes me optimistic Follow @markpack When the dulcet tones of the BBC’s Shipping Forecast turn to the weather in German Bight, two thoughts often flit through my mind – both related to the history of Heligoland, an island (or strictly speaking, an inhabited island and a small uninhabited neighbour) that previously gave its name to that shipping forecast area until a name change in 1956. The first thought is a reminder of how unbalanced the information provided online can be. Google “Heligoland” and you will usually find results dominated by music (Heligoland was an album title for Massive Attack) and military history (Heligoland was the site of the first British – German naval engagement of the First World War, the first air battle of the Second World War to be given its own name and post-war the location of one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever created by mankind). Dig deeper and you will find that Heligoland was also part of a significant nineteenth century diplomatic deal, yet those events are covered only lightly because the internet has far more music and military history fans producing content than it has diplomatic ones.

But it is that diplomatic role which also triggers the second, and optimistic, thought. The pair of islands that make up Heligoland are in the south-east corner of the North Sea, known as the German Bight. Seized by Britain in 1807 during the Napoleonic wars, Heligoland was formally ceded to Britain by Denmark as part of the Treaty of Kiel in 1814. From then until 1890 it remained in British hands, with the odd curiosity that it was during that time under British rule that a holidaying Heinrich Hoffmann wrote the lyrics for the German national anthem, Deutschland Uber Alles, there. In 1890 an international treaty saw, amongst other territorial changes, Heligoland returned to German rule in return for letting Britain take over Zanzibar. The residents of Heligoland did not get a say in this deal, and the Prime Minister of the time – Lord Salisbury – deliberately glossed over their lack of support for being handed to the Germans when securing the acquiescence of Queen Victoria to the treaty. So my reason for optimism?

This handing over of an island, regardless of the views of its inhabitants, would be all be unthinkable for a modern democracy now. Diego Garcia is arguably a partial exception to that, but the roots of that controversy lie many decades in the past and linked to military base rights rather than switching ownership of an island per se. There is much that is imperfect about the diplomacy of modern democracies, but the immensely antiquated feel of the idea of handing over an island without consent as part of an international treaty is a reminder that for all the flaws, hiccups and failures there has been a significant shift towards recognising the rights and interests of individuals even in matter of foreign affairs. Shipping Forecast - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Shipping Forecast Jump to: navigation , search The Shipping Forecast is a four-times-daily BBC radio broadcast of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the coasts of the British Isles . It is produced by the UK Meteorological Office (part of the Ministry of Defence ) and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (part of the Department for Transport ). The forecasts sent over the Navtex system use a similar format, and the same sea areas.

Because of its unique and distinctive sound, the broadcasts have an appeal beyond those solely interested in nautical weather. The waters around the British Isles are divided into sea areas, also known as weather areas (see map below) [1] and many listeners find the well-known repetition of the names of the sea areas almost hypnotic, particularly during the bedtime (for Britain) broadcast at 00:48 UK time . It is regarded with affection by many listeners, and in the United Kingdom often arises in general knowledge quizzes and is the butt of many affectionate jokes. There are four broadcasts per day: 00:48 - transmitted on FM and LW . Includes weather reports from an extended list of coastal stations at 00:52 and an inshore waters forecast at 00:55 and concludes with a brief UK weather outlook for the coming day. The broadcast finishes at approximately 00:58, and is followed by a short goodnight message and the National Anthem . 05:20 - transmitted on FM and LW. Includes weather reports from a coastal stations at 05:25, and an inshore waters forecast at 05:27.

12:01 - normally transmitted on LW only. 17:54 - transmitted on LW only on weekdays, as an opt-out from the PM programme , but at weekends transmitted on both FM and LW. Contents Map of Sea Areas and Coastal Weather Stations referred to in the Shipping Forecast. Here are the sea areas covering the waters around the British Isles : Viking Southeast Iceland The areas were roughly in the shape described above by 1949. Modifications after that include the introduction of Fisher in 1955, when Dogger was split in two. Heligoland was renamed German Bight the year later. In around 1983 the Minches sea area was merged with Hebrides .[ citation needed ] [2] In 1984, the areas in the North Sea were coordinated with those of other neighbouring countries, introducing North Utsire and South Utsire and reducing Viking in size. Finisterre was renamed FitzRoy (in honour of the founder of the Met Office ) in 2002 to avoid confusion with the Spanish area of the same name.

[3] Some names still differ; for example, the Dutch KNMI names the equivalent area to Forties after the Fladen Grounds . In the forecast, areas are named in a roughly clockwise direction, strictly following the order above. However, a forecast for Trafalgar is found only in the 0048 forecast - other forecasts do, however, report when there are warnings of gales in Trafalgar. An extract of the area forecasts Problems listening to this file? See media help . The forecast, excluding the header line, has a limit of 370 words, and has a very strict format [4] : It begins with "And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at xx:xx GMT today.". This normally follows this strict format, although some continuity announcers may read out the actual date of issue as opposed to the word "today". Gale warnings (winds of force 8 or more, on the Beaufort scale ), if any (e.g. There are warnings of gales in Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, and Fair Isle). This sometimes follows the opposite format (e.g.

There are warnings of gales in all areas except Biscay, Trafalgar and FitzRoy). The General Synopsis follows, giving the position, pressure (in millibars ) and track of pressure areas (e.g. Low, Rockall, 987, deepening rapidly, expected Fair Isle 964 by 0700 tomorrow). Each area's forecast is then read out. Several areas may be combined into a single forecast where the conditions are expected to be similar. Wind direction is given first, then strength (on the Beaufort scale), followed by precipitation , if any, and (usually) lastly visibility. Change in wind direction is indicated by veering ( clockwise change) or backing (anti-clockwise change). Winds of above force 8 are also described by name for emphasis, e.g. Gale 8, Severe Gale 9, Storm 10, Violent Storm 11 and Hurricane force 12. (See Beaufort scale ). The word "force" is only officially used when announcing force 12 winds.

[4] Visibility is given in the format Good, meaning that the visibility is greater than 5 nautical miles ; Moderate, where visibility is between 2 and 5 nautical miles; Poor, where visibility is between 1000 metres and 2 nautical miles and Fog , where visibility is less than 1000 metres. When severe winter cold combines with strong winds and a cold sea, icing can occur, normally only in sea area Southeast Iceland; if expected, icing warnings (light, moderate or severe) are given as the last item of each sea area forecast. Examples of area forecasts: Humber, Thames. Southeast veering southwest 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later. Thundery showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor. Tyne, Dogger. Northeast 3 or 4. Occasional rain. Moderate or poor. Rockall, Malin, Hebrides. Southwest gale 8 to storm 10, veering west, severe gale 9 to violent storm 11. Rain, then squally showers. Poor, becoming moderate. Southeast Iceland. North 7 to severe gale 9. Heavy snow showers.

Good, becoming poor in showers. Moderate icing. And most spectacularly, on 10 January 1993, when a record North Atlantic low pressure of 913 mb was recorded: Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey. Southwest hurricane force 12 or more. Icing can be a dangerous problem for ships; accurate forecasting can save lives by ensuring crews are prepared With the information provided in the Shipping Forecast it is perfectly possible to compile (and then interpret) a pressure chart for the coasts of North Western Europe. Extended shipping forecasts (0520 and 0048) also include weather reports from a list of additional coastal stations and automatic weather logging stations, which are known by their names, such as "Channel Light Vessel Automatic". These are the Coastal Weather Stations . This additional information does not fall within the 350 word restriction. ( RTÉ Radio 1 broadcasts similar coastal reports for Ireland ). Other maritime countries also use sea area maps but with local variations. For instance, the area that the British forecasts call Dover is referred to by the French as Pas-de-Calais .

[ edit ] Gale warnings In addition, gale warnings are broadcast at other times between programmes and after news; for example That was the news, and now 'attention all shipping', especially in sea areas German Bight and Humber: The Met Office issued the following gale warning to shipping at 2206 today. German Bight, west or northwest gale 8 to storm 10, expected imminent. Humber, west gale 8 or severe gale 9, expected soon. That completes the gale warning. When giving a gale warning the Met Office will indicate a time interval for when they expect the gale to occur. Imminent means that a gale is expected within 6 hours, Expected soon that a gale is expected within 6 to 12 hours and Later in more than 12 hours time. [ edit ] Frequencies The reason for choosing BBC Radio 4 for the Shipping Forecast is not simply because it is a speech-based channel, but also because it broadcasts via longwave on 198 kHz as well as FM , and the longwave signal can be received clearly at sea all around the British Isles regardless of time of day or radio conditions.

For this reason, until 1978 the Shipping Forecast was broadcast on the BBC Light Programme and then BBC Radio 2 , as they broadcast on longwave (200 kHz) and at those times the BBC Home Service and Radio 4 were on medium wave . The frequency changed to 198 kHz in 1989 when frequencies of LF and MF broadcast stations across Europe were changed under the reorganisation agreed in the Geneva Frequency Plan of 1975 [ edit ] Before closedown The last broadcast of the Shipping Forecast at 0048 each day is traditionally preceded by the playing of the musical piece Sailing By , a mellow string arrangement by Ronald Binge . This is only very rarely omitted, generally when the schedule is running late. Sailing By serves as a "buffer" to ensure mildly late running schedules do not impinge on the late forecast, as well as being a vital identification tool - it is distinctive and as such assists anyone attempting to tune in. The forecast is then followed by the National anthem and the closedown of the station for the day, with the BBC World Service taking over the frequencies after the BBC Pips at 0100.

[ edit ] "Mini" shipping forecast, maritime safety The Shipping Forecast should not be confused with similar broadcasts given by HM Coastguard to vessels at sea tuned into Marine VHF Radio Frequencies. HM Coastguard 's Broadcasts can only be heard by vessels or persons using or tuned into marine VHF radio frequencies, whereas the Shipping Forecast can be heard by anyone tuned into BBC Radio 4 . The Coastguard's broadcasts follow the same format as the shipping forecast using the same terminology and style, but the information only normally applies to the area sector or region covered by that particular Coastguard Co-ordination Centre (such as the Bristol Channel , for instance). Announcements of pending broadcasts by HMCG is given on marine Channel 16 VHF and would normally be announced along the lines of "This is Portland Coastguard, Portland Coastguard.... Marine Shipping Safety Information will now be Broadcast on Channel 23.... Portland Coastguard". As with the Shipping Forecast many people from a non-maritime background have been fascinated by this little known and very important service to the extent that they have bought handheld maritime radios purposely to listen to Coastguard Safety and Weather announcements.

It is probably for the same reasons outlined later in this article about the main shipping forecast that it has such a committed fanbase. [ edit ] Vocal characteristics The Shipping Forecast is intended to be read at dictation speed to aid those who wish to write down the information, although recent changes to the schedule have resulted in generic weather presenters reading the forecast in the early morning, which can mean dictation speed is not always adhered to. Occasionally, mistakes occur. For example on Friday 17 August 2007, the 0520 forecast and data, as read by BBC Weatherman Philip Avery, was in fact that for the previous day, and a special reading of the correct day's issue was given out at 0700 on 198 kHz Longwave, before rejoining the normal FM programming.[ citation needed ] This has occurred on other occasions and, when noticed, a repeat forecast is generally transmitted in a diversion from the advertised schedule. [ edit ] Influences on popular culture Due to its set rhythm, calm enunciation, and evocative names, the Shipping Forecast can sound quite poetic when broadcast. It is perhaps not surprising that it has featured in songs and poetry as a result.

" This Is a Low " on Blur 's album Parklife includes the lyrics: On the Tyne, Forth and Cromarty There's a low in the high Forties The song also contains references to Biscay, Dogger, Thames ("Hit traffic on the Dogger bank / Up the Thames to find a taxi rank") and Malin. Radiohead uses lyrics relating to the Shipping Forecast in its song " In Limbo " to represent a theme of being lost: Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea I've got a message I can't read The Young Punx sampled the shipping forecast as read by BBC presenter Alan Smith for their track "Rockall". The shipping forecast forms the entire lyric for the track, both used in its original form (yet rhyming and scanning) e.g. "Tyne, Dogger, German Bight. Humber, Thames , Dover, Wight" and also with the words re-edited into new orders to form new meanings and puns such as "expected to, Rock All, by midnight tonight".

Other popular artists who have used samples of the Shipping Forecast include Andy White who added the forecast to the track "The Whole Love Story" to create a very nostalgic, cosy and soporific sound, highly evocative of the British Isles; Tears for Fears , whose track "Pharaohs" (a play on the name of the sea area "Faeroes") is a setting of the forecast to a mixture of mellow music and sound effects; and Thomas Dolby , who included a shipping forecast read by BBC 's John Marsh on the track "Windpower". "The Good Ship Lifestyle", a track on the album Tubthumper by Chumbawumba , starts out with a listing of the sea areas — in the wrong order, however. British DJ Rob Overseer 's album Wreckage has a final track entitled " Heligoland ," where the Shipping Forecast surrealistically alternates between reporting the weather and the emotional states of an individual. The band British Sea Power entitled a B-side of their Please Stand Up single "Gales Warnings in Viking North". Beck includes a 27-second sample five minutes into the track "The Horrible Fanfare, Landslide, Exoskeleton" on the album " The Information ".

Experimental electronic musician Robin Storey , recording under the name Rapoon , sampled the shipping forecast for the track "Falling More Slowly" on the album Easterly 6 or 7 . The Prodigy sampled a short section of the shipping forecast in their song Weather Experience on their album Experience . [5] Manfred Mann's Earth Band extensively used samples of shipping forecasts as a part of the backing track to "Stranded", from their 1980 album, Chance. The Jethro Tull album Stormwatch features the shipping forecast in between verses of North Sea Oil. It is read by Francis Wilson , a TV weatherman who also reads the introduction to Dun Ringill on the same album. Silly Wizard includes a snippet of a gale warning from the shipping forecast in the closing instrumental of "The Fishermen's Song", which tells of the loss of a fishing boat in a North Sea storm. There is a three-bell change ringing method named "Shipping Forecast Singles". It was composed by Sam Austin and was rung to a peal in 2004 at St John the Baptist, Middleton, Warwickshire . Other three-bell methods by the same composer are named after various shipping areas.

[ edit ] Art and literature The Shipping Forecast has also inspired writing, painting and photographic collections, notably Charlie Connelly 's Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round The Shipping Forecast, Mark Power and David Chandler's The Shipping Forecast, and Peter Collyer 's Rain Later, Good. Their critical and commercial success is a tribute both to the time and energy people are willing to invest in artistic projects inspired by the shipping forecast, and the warmth with which the public regard this regular radio announcement. Seamus Heaney wrote a sonnet "The Shipping Forecast", which opens: Dogger, Rockall, Malin, Irish Sea: Green, swift upsurges, North Atlantic flux Conjured by that strong gale-warming voice, Collapse into a sibilant penumbra. The Carol Ann Duffy poem "Prayer" finishes with the lines: Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer — Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre. Author Peter James in his novel "Looking Good Dead" has a character (nicknamed "The Weatherman"), a computer geek savant type, who memorizes the Shipping Forecast four times a day.

In encounters with other characters, when he can't think of an appropriate response, he recites the current Shipping Forecast. Sometimes very useful, it is observed. In the book A Kestrel for a Knave and its film Kes , the lead character Billy Casper calls out German Bight after the teacher reads out the name of a pupil called Fisher during the class roll call. Author Barry Hines then has Billy say erroneously that Cromarty follows German Bight. Tail between legs; atmosphere frosty; Spare room: five or six.” In an episode of BBC Radio 4 series Live on Arrival , Steve Punt reads the Shopping Forecast, in which the regions are replaced with supermarket names, eg " Tesco , Fine Fare , Sainsbury ". The sketch ends with the information, "joke mileage decreasing, end of show imminent". Geoff Lloyd 's show on Virgin Radio includes a feature called The Shitting Forecast, in which listeners are invited to call in and say what they have eaten during the day, and their bowel movements are predicted in the style of the Shipping Forecast.

[ edit ] Film and television Terence Davies ' film Distant Voices, Still Lives , a largely autobiographical account of growing up in Liverpool during the 1940s and '50's, opens with a shipping forecast from this period. All the characters in the ITV cartoon The Adventures of Portland Bill were named after shipping areas or coastal weather stations, with two exceptions - Eddy Stone, named after a lighthouse , and Ross, presumably so called as he was the best friend of the character Cromarty (a former Scottish county was called Ross & Cromarty). The same device is used for a group of minor characters in Jasper Fforde's 2001 novel The Eyre Affair . A recitation of the Shipping Forecast by actor Peter Serafinowicz features prominently in the Black Books episode " The Big Lock-Out ". In the BBC TV show As Time Goes By , the housekeeper of the house in Hampshire (Mrs Bale) occasionally mentions the Shipping Forecast.

Sea Areas of the Shipping Forecast - Part 1 | TheYachtMarket Sea Areas Of The Shipping Forecast - Part 1 Sea Areas of the Shipping Forecast - Part 1 Post by: TheYachtMarket News The hows, whys and wheres behind the names Part 1. The Eastern Area – Viking to Thames "Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight" – such evocative sounds, but where do they come from and why? A bit of history Gale warnings for the British Isles were first broadcast to ships approaching these shores as far back as 1911 but with the outbreak of war in 1914 they ceased and the service was not resumed until 1921. In June of that year a specially prepared weather bulletin for shipping was broadcast twice daily from the wireless transmission station at Poldhu in Cornwall. Then from 1st January 1942 a weather bulletin called Weather Shipping was broadcast twice daily from the Air Ministry Station GFA in London. The Sea Areas and Stations originally used were subdivided into districts named after islands, rivers or banks within them. (The same principle is still used) These names identify themselves immediately to the mariner.

Sea Areas were amended in 1932 but bulletins ceased at the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. They were resumed in 1945 in much the same form but by 1948 the need was felt for forecasts to cover a wider area and considerable extensions were agreed upon. Since then certain names have been changed and areas subdivided until today we have the present form known and loved by all those who travel at sea. Although areas are frequently grouped together for the forecast they always appear in the same order. The areas – where are they and why are they so named? Viking – an area covering the open sea between Norway and the Shetland Islands. It originally included N & S Utsire. The word comes from old Norse vikingr used to refer to Norse explorers, warriors and pirates from the late 8th to mid 11th century. Viking is actually the name of a sandbank in the North Sea. This area is stormy, heavily tidal and also shallow. North Utsire and South Utsire – Utsire is a tiny, windy island of 4 square miles off the west coast of Norway with a population of approximately 240.

The origin of the name is uncertain but may mean “strong stream”. It is located in the North Sea and is an area where the weather is extremely harsh. However it seems to suit the birdlife, which is very rich, there being over three hundred species of birds on it, more species than the total population. It does boast a local football team which apparently used to win most of their matches due to the sea-sickness of the visiting teams. After complaints from the defeated teams, the league pronounced that Utsire should play all its fixtures on the mainland resulting in hardly any wins. Forties - an area in the North Sea named after a sandbank and also an area called the “Long Forties” which is fairly consistently 40 fathoms deep (73m). The area is the home to much of the North Sea’s oil and gas fields and it is approximately 100 miles from Aberdeen. Originally the area was larger but in 1955 the northern half was named Viking. It has no land boundaries at all. Cromarty – is named after both a river estuary and a place, Cromarty, in the Burgh of Ross and Cromarty in the North Eastern tip of Scotland.

The name originates from the Gaelic words crom (crooked) and bati (bay), or from ard (height). So it means either Crooked Bay or The Bend Between The Heights, referring to the high rocks or Sutors that guard the entrance to the Firth. They are said to be the sleeping forms of two giant shoemakers who protected the harbour from Vikings and pirates in past centuries. Now the estuary is home to more oil platforms. Forth – named after a river estuary the Firth of Forth. The name originated from Gaelic and means Black River. The river itself is 29 miles long and is the major river draining the eastern part of Central Scotland. Seafarers will be familiar with the famous Bell Rock lighthouse, the oldest working lighthouse in the world and the legend of the Inchcape Rock. Fear of striking the rock was sometimes so great that vessels were wrecked on neighbouring shores while trying to avoid it. Tyne - named after the river estuary of the River Tyne. Little is known about the origins of the name although it is thought that tin was a word meaning river in the local Celtic language.

The river is a confluence of the North and the South Tyne which converge near Hexham in Northumberland. Included in the area is the town of Whitby in Yorkshire which was home to Captain Cook for three years. It was here that he studied and learned from the waters of the east coast how to charter through unknown seas. Dogger – a sandbank in the North Sea. It is about 160 miles long and 60 miles wide and is approximately 20m shallower than the surrounding area. It is a productive fishing ground for cod and has been the site of several naval battles. The most bizarre of these was “The Dogger Bank Incident” of 1904 when the Russian Baltic fleet, instructed by the Tsar to sail for Japan and participate in the Russo-Japanese War, mistook a Swedish trawler for a Japanese ship and a fleet of British trawlers for Japanese torpedo boats. They opened fire and inflicted carnage on the fishing boats, not once wondering why they were not retaliating. The incident caused outrage and brought Britain and Russia to the brink of war. The tragedy was commemorated by a statue which stands in Hull.

The area used to be larger but was subdivided, the north eastern half being renamed Fisher. Fisher – named after a sandbank off the west coast of Denmark. It has a landfall on the west coast of Denmark which is part of Jutland and includes some of the area called Skagerrak. The Battle of Jutland in World War 1 was one of the largest naval battles in history. The British Royal Navy attacked the German Navy leading to heavy casualties on both sides. Initially it was regarded as a German victory but Britain remained in control of the North Sea. German Bight – an area between the 2 headlands of the Netherlands and Denmark. In 1955 the name was changed from the original Heligoland, possibly because we did not like to be reminded of the failed raid against German surface ships by RAF bomber squadrons. We received more damage than the German ships and as a result daylight bombing was abandoned in favour of night missions. Humber – the area around the estuary of the River Humber on the east coast of Northern England. Although it is now just an estuary, during the Ice Age, when sea level was lower, the river had a long freshwater course across the dried up North Sea.

The area of sea off the Norfolk coast is notoriously treacherous for shipping and the stretch off Cromer is well named as the Devil’s Throat. It was here that one particularly stormy night in 1693 two hundred ships were lost and over a thousand lives. Thirteen miles out to sea from Cromer are the notorious Haisborough sands which together with their strong currents have produced a historic graveyard for ships travelling between Thames and Tyne. Thames – named after the estuary of the River Thames, the longest river entirely in England and the 2nd longest in the UK. It includes the Principality of Sealand. Originally built for guarding the sea, the Maunsell Sea Forts were abandoned after the Second World War but in 1967 a British man Paddy Roy Bates occupied one of the towers and declared sovereignty. Now forty years later his son continues the legacy. After the disastrous North Sea flood of 1953 when 307 people in England lost their lives and there were further casualties on boats along North European coasts and in deeper waters of the North Sea, new flood control measures were put into place which culminated in the construction of the Thames Barrier in the 1970’s.

Question: Which Shipping Forecast Area was formerly known as Heligoland?
Answer: GERMAN BIGHT