Sailing By - Shipping Forecast words

'Sailing By' - a painting of the words of the shipping forecast

• An original painting in watercolour and acrylic ink, size 550 x 740mm.
• An A2 sized poster print of Sailing By, signed by me - coming in early March 2025, please pre-order here today
• A digital file for self printing
• Greeting cards and tea towels of Sailing By - coming in early March

For other Shipping Forecast designs and products see my Shipping Forecast collection

It's 10 years since I painted my award-winning painting of the shipping forecast. 2025 marks the centenary of shipping forecast broadcasts on the BBC; the perfect time for me to revisit this beloved subject.

The UK shipping forecast, a nautical weather broadcast, has been assisting seafarers for more than 100 years, but it means so much more than that. It's now deeply etched into British DNA and reflects our maritime history and seafaring nationhood.

Sailing By

The painting is named after the shipping forecast's theme tune: 'Sailing By'. Composed by Ronald Binge in 1963 (the year of my birth) it's played every night on BBC Radio 4.

Many insomniacs use the soothing melody of 'Sailing By' as a lullaby. Something reassuring and comforting at bedtime. 

In the bottom right hand corner of my painting, you'll see a woman tucked up in her bed, with her ginger cat, enjoying her last cup of tea of the day, and listening to Sailing By on her bedside radio.

A visual lullaby

There are 31 sea areas covered in the shipping forecast and my painting is focused on their names. 

The sea area reports are always read out in the same order. It begins with Viking, North Utsire and South Utsire, and ends with Fair Isle, Faeroes and Southeast Iceland. In my painting, I have followed this precise format.

Using these words, combined with small illustrations, I have tried to create a kind of visual lullaby. Something restful to rely on, a kind of prayer or poem.

I've carefully chosen appropriate typography for each sea area name, and tried to bring it all together using a limited palette of calming blues and greens. 

Look at the painting, listen to the words, and let your mind and imagination gently drift with the tides...

Something predictable for troubled times 

In our increasingly uncertain world, the shipping forecast is a predictable daily poem, a prayer to the Atlantic Weather Gods in troubled times. 

The shipping forecast has a very strict limit of 350 words. It begins the same way every broadcast. The weather, the winds, the visibility and the sea state may change, but the shipping forecast makes sense of this turbulence.

Illustrations

As well as the shipping forecast words, in 'Sailing By' I have included numerous illustrations. These ive the painting a storybook quality. Perhaps the kind of lavishly illustrated picture book that your parents read to you at bedtime?

There are ships, of course!

• Viking longship
• Thames barge
• RNLI lifeboat, Tamar class
• Scillonian III
• Mary Rose (Henry VIII's flagship)
• HMS Beagle
• Yacht
• Cross-channel ferry
• Lightvessel
• Container ship
• Calmac ferry
• Fishing boat

As well as:

• Bush vintage radio (like the one I first heard the shipping forecast on)
• Orca
• The face of the wind
• Common dolphin
• Gannets over Bass Rock
• Cod fish
• Oil rig
• Avocet, Shelduck and Oystercatcher
• Herring gull in flight
• Grey seal
• Storm petrel
• Basking shark eating plankton
• Vice admiral Sir Robert FitzRoy (inventor of weather forecasting)
• Altlantic bluefin tuna
• Puffins 
• Mackerel
• Guillemots
• Lighthouse
• Herring gull
• White horses
• Pilot whale 
• Arctic tern
• Bedtime lullaby!

Want to know precisely where the sea areas are around our coast? See my award-winning hand-painted map of the shipping forecast. And check out my Shipping Forecast collection.