YM Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

[Coaster]

...also stopped @ 20

That's a lot of children...

 

[DJE]

Your first (unquoted part) is unverified by any experimentation - so I don't see why it shouldn't be correct, or not.

I remember it dimly from a lecture on unit systems when I was at university but it seems pretty self-evident to me.

On the quoted part, having been around in 1972, in the engineering industry, I can tell you that the mm were very much driven by that industry.
I still tend to work in mm which has drawn some very strange looks all round Europe.

We use mm exensively in the construction industry even for dimensions of several tens of thousands of the little blighters!

 

[sailorman]

That's a lot of children...

the child allowance comes in handy
you should see the size of the boat

 

[Sailfree]

It has failed to be adopted because it ignores a basic principle that people like to deal in whole numbers between 1 and 100. It's much easier to remember and visualise the difference between a 32ft boat and a 35ft boat than it is when the measurements are expressed as 9.8m and 10.7m. It's nothing to do with familiarity with the system; it's just the way our minds work.

I think you are right and that why even the French sold me a Jeanneau 43DS and no I could not afford 43m.

 

[cgull]

I once chartered an Etap called Absolutely!

 

[Blue5]

The UK has been metric since 1972 isnt about time we stopped all this dual measurement clap-trap. Is is very distracting & senseless

I very often find myself mixing the two, asking the timber merchant for 3 metres of 4 x 2

 

[EastCoastChris]

On their new 100 point results test I'd give them 1 mark for getting the make right. - Please try harder

They're probably too busy working on the design to worry about content

It's only nostalgia that sees me still subscribing.

Chris

 

[moondancer]

light the blue touchpaper

I'll bear that in mind for when I launch my next one.

if you were sending very expensive satellites to Mars, you might be concerned about a difference in measurements standards, as in confusing metres and feet.

Then again, closer at home, a rock at 3m, or 3ft... ?

 

[Sans Bateau]

12 kts over the land !! Impressive. I didn't know there was an option to fit wheels. How effective is the rudder when the boat is out of the water?

Yes I know it might sound funny, its the speed of the boat in relation to the land rather than to the water, also called speed over the ground (SOG).

 

[Seanick]

I agree entirely, not close hauled, not possible. Close reach, or beam reach, thats when we can hit 8 knts. Close hauled, 6kts is more like it.

Wanna race?

 

[dunedin]

Oh, the speed issue, I'll need to read the article again, 8knts yes in the right conditions, 9? did I say that? Mid 7's is the speed we can maintain, again in the right conditions. Over the land we have hit 12knts.

There was another discrepancy, I was quoted as saying we regularly averaged 6 knts crossing the channel, in fact we regularly average 6.6knts, if you dont believe that, I'm happy for you to read the ships log.

So the log shows 7.6knots, and the wind indicator shows about 6 degrees apparent wind angle. So its the iron topsail set then ;-)

 

[fireball]

nah your looking at the compass ... wind is the instrument on the left - the one labeled wind !!

 

[dunedin]

nah your looking at the compass ... wind is the instrument on the left - the one labeled wind !!

So you don't have both a full wind angle and a closehauled wind angle dial ?
Didn't recognise a "compass" reading to 30 degrees ;-)

 

[fireball]

Actually I'm not sure what that one is showing. Could be closehauled wind I guess but I'd expect to see the mainsheet with wind at that angle.

The heading Reading agrees with the cp though.

 

[Robin]

It is an ST50 Compass which shows the off course error +/- from the course set or the autopilot course if that is on and linked to the instrument system. In this case it shows the helmsman or pilot is about 6 degs to port of the course required.

 

[timbartlett]

Those were the days, my friends

The UK has been metric since 1972 isnt about time we stopped all this dual measurement clap-trap. Is is very distracting & senseless

I remember our old storeman/rigger announcing that he was "going metric" and that we would "use the metric marks on the floor today"

So I put the eye of an old shroud on the nail at one end of the loft, and he pulled it out tight. I can't remember the exact numbers (this was about thirty years ago) but it was something like "nine metres two foot one and three eighths".

About the same time he ordered a new coil of rope. What he wanted was some bog-standard three-inch three-strand. So he looked it up in the conversion tables, and found that 3 inches was about 75mm. So he ordered a coil of 75mm rope. He was quite surprised when, instead of the usual van and sack-truck, this particular coil arrived on a lorry with a Hiab.

Shame no-one had reminded him that although imperial ropes are measured by circumference, metric ones are measured by diameter!

 

[Angele]

Yes I know it might sound funny, its the speed of the boat in relation to the land rather than to the water, also called speed over the ground (SOG).

Sorry Galadriel, couldn't resist being daft.

I always think of land as the yellow bits on charts, or as the thing that the boy in the crow's nest spots on the horizon. Not the mud underneath the keel. That's ground. Hence SOG (as you say) and COG, not SOL and COL.

 

[sailorman]

I remember our old storeman/rigger announcing that he was "going metric" and that we would "use the metric marks on the floor today"

So I put the eye of an old shroud on the nail at one end of the loft, and he pulled it out tight. I can't remember the exact numbers (this was about thirty years ago) but it was something like "nine metres two foot one and three eighths".

About the same time he ordered a new coil of rope. What he wanted was some bog-standard three-inch three-strand. So he looked it up in the conversion tables, and found that 3 inches was about 75mm. So he ordered a coil of 75mm rope. He was quite surprised when, instead of the usual van and sack-truck, this particular coil arrived on a lorry with a Hiab.

Shame no-one had reminded him that although imperial ropes are measured by circumference, metric ones are measured by diameter!

LOL
i hope it wasnt made especially for him

 

[IanH]

Excuse the slight fred drift but...

DK has been metric since may 4, 1907, but we still (often) use feet when measuring boats - So give it a few more years
Agree to the confusion and senslessness, though.

My 10 yo and 4 yo daughters were discussing something in the back of the car yesterday and working out gaps. The older of the two said that her gap was about an inch whilst someone else's was much smaller at about a cm.

Well it amused me.

Ian

 

[shaunksb]

The Etap 35i is:

Length. 10.68 metres
Beam. 3.5 meters
draft is 1.6 meters.
Dry displacement is 5300kg
The fuel tank holds 105 ltrs
The 2 water tanks hold 130ltrs each.

Thank you Galadriel for putting the record straight. It seems that YM were not even that accurate with the figures before they converted them! Behind my slightly tongue in cheek pop at them is a slightly more serious point. I'm sure a lot of us rely on publications like this for info especially when considering that "next purchase". I know when buying my boat I went straight for a back copy of their test for a second, considered opinion. It's just a bit sloppy not to get the basics right. I enjoy the mag, so come on YM your readers deserve better.