ADMIRALTY Marine Data Portal

What you can build

• Set berth windows to predicted high water

  The operator reads TidalEvents for the station at each berth and proposes arrival and departure windows around high water for the coming week. You approve the slots; the station ID and predicted heights stay on the record.

  With Dock Schedule, ETA Notice

• Warn a coastal site ahead of a large tide

  When predicted heights at a nearby station exceed the threshold you set, the operator lists the exposed sites and proposes preparation steps and a notice to occupants, citing the event time and height.

  With Storm Prep, Severe Weather Notice

• Flag planned routes that cross routeing measures or wrecks

  Before a coastal move, the operator overlays the route on the Ships Routeing Measures and Wrecks and Obstructions layers and proposes a deviation where the two intersect.

  With Route Deviation

Requirements

• An ADMIRALTY API Developer Portal account subscribed to the UK Tidal API - Discovery product, with its terms accepted
• Station IDs for the berths or coastline you watch, taken from the Stations operation
• Network reach to admiraltyapi.azure-api.net and datahub.admiralty.co.uk
• The acknowledgement Contains ADMIRALTY® data: © Crown copyright and database right shown to anyone who sees Tidal API output
• A GIS reader for shapefiles or an ArcGIS feature-service client for the portal layers

Authentication

A subscription key from the ADMIRALTY API Developer Portal for the UK Tidal API; the Discovery product is free for one year and its keys sit under Profile. Portal downloads of wrecks, routeing, and limits need no key.

Limits

• Discovery is capped at 10 calls per second and 10,000 calls per month, and returns only today plus six days of tidal events
• Longer horizons need the paid Foundation (current plus 13 days) or Premium (historical and current plus 1 year) subscriptions
• Wrecks update quarterly and maritime limits annually; the portal's items carry their own Data Updated dates
• Offshore infrastructure, astronomical and calendar data, and VORF are purchasable, not open, on the portal

Questions and answers

Is the UK Tidal API free?

The UK Tidal API - Discovery product is a free one-year subscription: 607 UK stations, today plus six days of high and low water, 10 calls per second, 10,000 calls per month. Foundation and Premium are paid annual subscriptions with longer horizons and, on Premium, interval heights and stream locations.

What does a TidalEvents call return?

GET /uktidalapi/api/V1/Stations/{stationId}/TidalEvents with an optional duration of 1 to 7 days returns an array of events. Each has EventType (HighWater or LowWater), DateTime, Height in metres, IsApproximateTime, IsApproximateHeight, and Filtered. A 403 means the quota is exceeded; a 429 means too many requests.

Which portal data sets are open?

Wrecks and Obstructions is free under the Open Government Licence v3 and updates quarterly. Ships Routeing Measures, Maritime Limits and Boundaries, Ocean Climatology, and the Satellite Derived Coastline are public downloads. Bathymetry through the beta Seabed Mapping Data Service is also under the Open Government Licence.