Fathoms, Feet or Metres?

Never mind metres, we still measure rope in fathoms: last time I asked the French fishermen still measured 'un bras'. My echo meter has Italian fathoms and Hiros also.
 
Ash Naz, Ash Naz, Ash Naz thrakuluk

Guapa said:
here-there-be-dragons.jpg
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Where are the Haradrim?:D
 
Ludd said:
Only times I think in fathoms is when I'm measuring rope (full arm stretch =1 fathom,+ or- a bit!) or quoting" Full fathom five thy father lies----"
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Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.
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:)
 
US charts in Fathoms

Last time I sailed in US waters all of the depths were marked on the charts in Fathoms so it would be useful to be able to switch units when crossing the Atlantic or going to other distant places.

Personally I have no problem changing units or currencies or time zones but I find some languages a bit tricky and usually resort to wild gesticulations and shouting.

Measurements are even worse than sailing when you go flying: navigation in Nautical Miles, altitude in Feet, visibility reported in kilometers and runway dimensions in metres unless you are in USA where they are given in feet.
 
Metric please. In everything.

Metres, kilograms, litres, hectopascals, the lot as far as I am concerned.

I learnt imperial at school until 10 and then we were told to switch to metric for everything. 6 months of mild confusion, but all agreed it was so much easier once you have done it.
 
SolentBoy said:
Metric please. In everything.

Metres, kilograms, litres, hectopascals, the lot as far as I am concerned.

I learnt imperial at school until 10 and then we were told to switch to metric for everything. 6 months of mild confusion, but all agreed it was so much easier once you have done it.
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Most of the time, you're most comfortable with what you grew up with.

29 years go, I learned to drive in Canada. Moved to Belgium shortly afterwards.
And despite living in Britain since 1999, to this day I still drive a LHD car.
 
The fathom was a convenient measure, 100th of a cable which in turn was 10th of a real mile, but when Droggy made these new charts with metres we all got used to it
 
Lakesailor said:
Because feet are so much easier.
I make less mistakes in feet.
The sooner we leave the EU the better.
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Oy, shift over, not much room on this hobby horse. Right handed chippies hold the pencil in the right hand, tape in the left, tape is inverted. Read those ghastly bleddy mililillimetersers, there's too many of them, and all sixes and nines upside down, don't get the same mistakes in ft & ins. I have some left handed tapes, marketed on a left handed website. They don't sell because left handers happily use ordinary tapes. A PV window maker took some off me, he said miscuts cost him a fortune.
 
A fathom, being 2 yards I don't think I've ever said its, say 30 fathoms to the pub, I'd say 60 yards. Is that because fathoms is only used in soundings, equally I would never have said its so & so yards deep.. strange..
I'm betting nobody on here uses larboard anymore...

Well we work in...
Boat length - feet
Distance - Nautical miles
Speed - knots
Wind speed - m/s (seems less wind in a hooley;))
Depth - meters

Quite international really, well wife is Swedish..
 
sarabande said:
the last time I was out, I was told to pass "about a cable" off the headland.....
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About 185.2 metres.

See..... dead easy. :)

When the charts went metric, so did I. Painful at first but now life is much, much easier.

And what about nuts and bolts? Who would ever prefer having a set of spanners sized in 32nds of an inch.

The forces of reaction are powerful, tho. I believe the metric system was adopted in the USA in 1866.

Didn't a recent European satellite launch in the USA fail recently because of a metric/imperial cockup?
 
Lakesailor said:
Because feet are so much easier.
I make less mistakes in feet.
The sooner we leave the EU the better.
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I started as a building surveyor in an Imperial industry, how easy it was!
for example
Calculate the cost of tiling a room 8ft 6 [3/4]" x 11ft 5 [1/2]"
tiles cost £1. 11/6 per yd super.
1/2 bushel sand at 5/6d
cement 6/4d per cwt.
craftsman 8/10[3/4] per hour

No calculators.
Simple. yeah lets all go back to the good old days.
[how do you type fractions?]
 
It's always been a source of wonderment to me that German engineers manage to make anything work, hobbled as they are by a useless system of measurement.

:rolleyes:
 
3/4" pipe fittings are still 3/4" I think (I await the howls of protest) but are just called 19mm. Toothpaste tubes were always 1" dia back when I was into buying them for the company I worked for, then when everything went metric they were called 25mm but guess what, they were still made on the same tools and were 25.4mm. I bought a fluorescent tube yesterday that was called 1500mm yet it fitted our ancient 5ft (1524mm) fitting perfectly.
 
Some people prefer to express their body weight in stones.
I prefer mine in kilos.
My weight is unchanged either way, and I find this unsurprising.

:cool:
 
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Robin said:
3/4" pipe fittings are still 3/4" I think (I await the howls of protest) but are just called 19mm.
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Last time I did any plumbing (which was not that long ago) they were still called 3/4. Although officially that's not an actual dimension, it's a "size number".

Makes sense though, because they never were actually 3/4" in any direction. The 3/4" refers to the inner diameter of a black iron pipe whose outside would be threaded with that pipe thread by an Edwardian gas fitter. You won't get anywhere trying to identify BSP fittings by simply measuring them.

Pete
 
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