Almost tidally locked to moon and the tides it would create

I have a world with a moon, much like Earth and the Moon, except that the planet is almost tidally locked to the moon. The moon therefore appears to move only very slowly through the sky, and takes, say, 7 years to do a full revolution.

Across the equator of the planet runs a fresh water sea. My goal is to create an environment like ancient Egypt with the Nile, where there's periodic and very dramatic floods and ebbs. Also, I want a relatively easy way to circumnavigate the world following this sea/river current.

I just want have some idea that this setting makes sense and that I've correctly predicted likely behaviour, since I don't know much about seas.

1. Would the difference in high tide and low tide be more dramatic than on Earth for a similarly sized moon, because the sea would have more time to "catch up" to the moon? Or would they be about the same?
2. On earth the two high tides are roughly equal in size. Would that also be true for this system?
3. Supposing you were in a boat, and you wanted to follow the tides around the world, where in the cycle would you want to sail? I would think you'd want to lag about half way between a high tide and low tide bulge, chasing after high tide. I would think that would be when the currents are strongest. Which would put the Moon at about a 45 degree angle ahead of you in the sky if I'm right (you'd basically be chasing the moon, and from your perspective it wouldn't move in the sky).
4. Could you just drift on the tidal currents around this world, or would you need a motor or a sail?
5. How would the currents work relative to the high tide bulges? I'm thinking that there are two options. Either the tidal currents always point towards the high tide bulge, and there's basically two convection cells on either side of the high tide slack current, or there's a single convection cell, and the tidal bulge works like a raindrop sliding down a window. Which would mean there's actually a current that flows away from the tidal bulge ahead of it before dropping down to the sea floor/river bed and reversing direction.

Any insight would be appreciated. If there are any striking features that I haven't thought of that would also be interesting to know.

posted almost 7 years ago

Jay Lemmon‭

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