The Shipping Forecast Project

If you have a question, please contact the Project Manager Colin Balfour on landscape@rps.org

The Shipping Forecast Project

Open for entries: 1 April 2023 until 31 March 2024

The Shipping Forecast is an iconic institution. Most of us are familiar with the Shipping Forecast and the related sea areas even if we’re not sailors or we live away from the sea. The Shipping Forecast is produced by the Met Office and broadcast four times a day on BBC Radio 4 on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The service celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2017.

There are a total of 31 sea areas of which 17 also have a land (or nearby) boundary on Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is these 17 coastlines that we are keen to capture as part of this new RPS Landscape Group project. We’re also keen to include islands that lie within these areas.

Sea Areas

The 17 areas with a land boundary are:

Plymouth: Lands End to Brixham
Portland: Brixham to Poole
Wight: Poole to Eastbourne
Dover: Eastbourne to Deal
Thames: Deal to Hemsby
Humber: Hemsby to Scarborough
Tyne: Scarborough to Bamburgh
Forth: Bamburgh to Stonehaven
Cromarty: Stonehaven to Wick
Fair Isle: Wick to Durness
Hebrides: Durness to Mallaig
Malin: Mallaig to Portpatrick/across to Whitehead
Irish Sea: Portpatrick across to Whitehead/Kilmuckridge across to Trefasser
Lundy: Kilmuckridge across to Trefasser/down to Lands End
Fastnet: Kilmuckridge to Lower Reen
Shannon: Kingstown Glebe to Lower Reen
Rockall: Kingstown Glebe

Planning Guide:

The latitude and longitude must be recorded and submitted along with each image. Latitude and longitude should be in the decimal degrees (DD) format to at least four decimal places and can be obtained from various apps, e.g. Google Maps, Apple Maps, The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) and PhotoPills.

Accepted formats are 58.6730, -3.3762 and 58.6730N 3.3762W (no degree symbol is required). Degrees, minutes and seconds (DMS) format can be converted to decimal degrees by copying and pasting the coordinates into Google Maps or Apple Maps. The location will be used to more accurately place images some of which may lie near or on the equivalent land boundaries.

The equivalent sea area must be recorded and selected. An approximation of where these areas are coincident with land is as shown in the map on the left and is as advised by the Met Office.

The following are optional but recommended:

Please document the shipping forecast entry for the sea area on the day the image was taken.

The current (today’s) shipping forecast for all sea areas is available at: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/specialist-forecasts/coast-and-sea/shipping-forecast

Archived shipping forecasts are available at: https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/?pg=2&name=SO_e5987449-1488-4e43-99f9-bc9f35438286 It may take a few weeks for the relevant shipping forecast to be archived.

For example, the shipping forecast for Forth on 15/02/23 using the first link was:

FORTH

SOUTH OR SOUTHWEST 4 TO 6, OCCASIONALLY 3 LATER.

SLIGHT OR MODERATE, OCCASIONALLY ROUGH AT FIRST.

OCCASIONAL RAIN LATER.

MODERATE OR GOOD, OCCASIONALLY POOR LATER.

NB Please remove the headings WIND, SEA STATE, WEATHER and VISIBILITY and convert the remaining text to upper case.

And, the shipping forecast for Forth on 01/01/23 at 05:05 using the second link was:

CROMARTY FORTH

EAST VEERING NORTHWEST LATER, 5 TO 7. SLIGHT OR MODERATE. RAIN. GOOD, OCCASIONALLY POOR

Shipping Forecast Coordinates For Current Areas

3004335 Sean Kitson Moods Of Luskentyre — **CREDIT:** Sean Kitson

Registration

Please first register your interest in this project here.

You only need to do this once. Please indicate which sea area you are most likely to capture. This is not binding but helps us with assessing demand across all 17 sea areas.

3025394 Steve Baldwin Lrps Breaking Dawn Bamburgh — **CREDIT:** Steve Baldwin LRPS

How to submit your images

A maximum of four images can be submitted up to 31 March 2024. One form should be completed for each image. Images can be taken at the same location or four different locations or some other combination. This is intended to be flexible in terms of the chosen location(s) and allows, for example, one image per season at the same location or four images with different viewpoints or techniques taken from the same location on the same day.

Images must be taken from a coastal location and include the sea in all or part of the frame. Colour, black and white, infrared, ICM and drone images are all allowed.

Images must be taken at any time between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024.

Image files should be no larger than 2000px on the longest edge. Any aspect ratio is allowed.

You may be asked for a higher resolution image should your image be selected at the end of the project so please keep your RAW image safe.

All submitted files must be named with the title and photographer's name. Correct file naming looks like this: image-title-by-firstname-lastname.jpg. e.g. Dover by Ron Smith.jpg.

Please enter the date when the image was taken.

Please record the observed weather and sea conditions in the relevant box (this is optional).

YOUR SAFETY - Do not take any risks when taking images and please heed the weather forecast.

A selection of the submitted images will be chosen by the judging panel and will be displayed in a web gallery after the project closes. Other options may be considered such as an exhibition or publication but there will no commitment at this stage beyond a web gallery.

If you have a question, please contact the Project Manager Colin Balfour on landscape@rps.org

The Shipping Forecast is a project organised by the RPS Landscape Group.

Image credits: Kilmore Quay By William Gleeson / Moods of Luskentyre by Sean Kitson / Breaking Dawn Bamburgh by Steve Baldwin LRPS. These images were previously submitted to RPS Landscape Group’s monthly competitions.