I think I may need a winch on the car

[JPB]

Ah yes, I should have guessed. Though I'd sooner blame the baby Jesus 'cos he isn't a member of the largely American boombox forum I so enjoy using.

[tractorman]

from freakishly big neap tides

Neap tides are never big. Spring tides are though.....

Except this neap tide - the spring tide was about a fortnight ago! A least that's what an "expert" said on the Beeb news. Apparently, there's a "freak" tide every seven years (which kinda fits for us); the way the wind and rain came at peak of the neap tide, made it a frekishly big tide - let alone a neap tide!

Mind you, I've lived here for thirty years and, eleven years before we moved, I lived further along the Solway for eleven years and I still get the tides wrong! I thought the spring tide (the water springs up) was a fortnight ago and, as it was the New Moon, the tide wouldn't be as high on Friday - until I saw the rain and heard the wind!

[Luxobarge]

Tecnically (and I'm being uber-pedantic here) that isn't a tide, it's a surge. A tide, whether neap or spring will always be at a specific predictable height at any given point, and therefore neap tides are always smaller than springs etc. However, a strong wind blowing for a long time in a specific direction can "heap up " the sea, and sometimes this can raise the level higher than the difference between a neap and a spring tide. It's still a surge though, and not a tide - there's no such thing as a "freak" tide, but there are other conditions that can raise sea levels at certain places that could be termed as freakish - they're just not technically "tides".

[/pedant]

[JPB]

That's good stuff. Pedanticism rocks!

OK, so surges can be managed with regulators and capacitors. Has anyone got a circuit diagram of the Sea please?

[/facetious baldy bloke]

[Luxobarge]

Pedanticism rocks!

Pedantry, surely......

You set 'em up, I'll knock 'em down.... Lol

[JPB]

Yep, but funnily enough, there are some google hits for my way of saying it which is really quite a shame as I was so sure I'd invented a new word extension.