A new version of the FES hydrodynamic finite element tide model combined with a revised data assimilation procedure is now available. The CEFMO hydrodynamic model previously used to obtain the solution FES94.1 was improved and the assimilation method based on the representer approach was revised. A careful selection of in situ tide gauge data from different data banks allowed us to build a collection of about 700 data values for each of the eight computed waves (M2, S2, N2, K2, 2N2, K1, O1 and Q1), which were assimilated. Eighteen other constituents of the tide spectrum were derived by admittance and three long period waves were added. Referred to as FES98, these new solutions are available on a 0.25¿¿0.25¿ gridded version of the full finite element solutions. This paper presents these new FES solutions and proposes a brief analysis of the improvements of the new approach with respect to the former FES94.1 and FES95.2.1 solutions. ¿ 2000 American Geophysical Union