Convenience of the metric system

[Bill Seal]

Back when Carter tried to force the metric system on the US, almost all machine tools used decimal inches. To convert to metric would require changing all the lead screws and nuts on all lathes and mills in the US.
Now that the CNC tools are decimal, a computer does the math and drives the stepper motors.
BTW, centimeters are no longer used, the SI blessed units are only meters and millimeters, so your boat is now 30,250 mm long. Or is it 30.250 mm using the European convention. ???

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Bill Seal

Back when Carter tried to force the metric system on the US, almost all machine tools used decimal inches. To convert to metric would require changing all the lead screws and nuts on all lathes and mills in the US.
Now that the CNC tools are decimal, a computer does the math and drives the stepper motors.
BTW, centimeters are no longer used, the SI blessed units are only meters and millimeters, so your boat is now 30,250 mm long. Or is it 30.250 mm using the European convention. ???

You know that was true here too. But, whilst the metric system was imposed on people in Australia from 1970, no tooling had to be changed. The recommendation was purely that tooling be change to metric as it was retired. It must had taken quite a few years because many machines in the 80's in workshops around the nation were still imperial. But by the 80's all schools and colleges had replaced them. The money system changed within a year from memory. In Law the system was introduced over ten years. Full conversion occurred in Law by 1988.

Australia was/is a glowing example of how successful it was able to be introduced with none of the panic and gloom of the US, Canada and Britain claimed it would be.


And boats are measured in 'meters' here, so that would be 30.25 Meters.

[Stu Jackson]

This is like one of those "What's The Best...???" questions.

What’s the Best?

Best???

I've seen this kind of question come up in boating forums all over the internet, and just think it's time to make a basic statement:

Boats are COMPROMISES. All of them are. Whether it's for space down below, rigging, keel types, or anything else, each has positive and negative aspects.

Each one of us has preferences, too. We can see that from the comments about the, for instance, C36s in an earlier post on this topic.

Many of us, in the past, have answered the "What is the Best" question with a simple answer: "The boats we already own."

Friends of mine have taken their C34s to the Bahamas, and one last year from Vancouver, BC, to Mexico. They all survived.

Steph "The Boat Babe" and her significant other took their 25 footer to the Bahamas. They survived, and he's now making the Solar Stick.

There is simply no "Best" boat. It involves making choices and compromises to suit what you like and what your budget is.

My friend who took his C34 to Mexico wrote this after his first 1500 miles:

I find it really interesting on the whole debate of what makes an offshore sail boat. It is unbelievable how much BS floats around and how many people have opinions but no experience based on the particular boat they happen to have an opinion on. I now believe it matters far more how the boat is prepared than what boat it is. Obviously you need a minimum standard in terms of hull integrity and rig strength and I think the Catalina 34 has that easily. The question is can the boat and crew be prepared for offshore? I believe the answer to that question lies only with the skipper who does the preparation. In our case, we have had a fairly good shakedown cruise and I rate the boat highly. I've had "experienced" sailors who were aghast that I would take my family with no offshore experience in a Catalina 34 from Vancouver to San Francisco - a nasty bit of coast. And it takes some serious thought to call bull#### and say you're up to the challenge having never sailed in an ocean swell. I've also had experienced sailors who say go to the Marquesas and you'll find a lot of less capable boats than yours crewed by Europeans having the time of their lives. And you'll also find North Americans with real fancy boats with a lot of broken bits waiting for parts.

I urge you all to stop thinking of "best" start thinking of "what is appropriate and safe."

Beneteau, Catalina are much like Tartan and Sabre, only the T & S cost a lot more for finishes down below. Compare a Hinckley or a Hood to all four of those? No contest. Flicka at 20 feet, Dana at 24, Cabo Rico vs a Westerly?

C'mon.

You might want to read a few books, like "Desirable and Undesirable Characteristics of Offshore Boats" or Nigel Calder's "Cruising Handbook" to get an idea of the TRADEOFFS that work and don't work. But given that, people have sailed all over on boats that would be considered "undesirable" anyway, and had great fun doing it, just like my friend wrote.

Your boat, your choice.

Enjoy.



More What’s The Best

Which is the best city to live in? Which is the best cheese? Which is the best job? The answer to ALL of these is the same: it depends on the person asking.

I currently have the boat that is "best" for me but it may not suit you. I could go on and on why it is "best." But it isn't. It is best for me --- full stop. And that has nothing to do with you nor will it help you find answers to your quest for a boat that is “right” and eventually perhaps “best” for you.

People have preferences and even the ugliest, most unseaworthy boat in the marina has somebody who loves her.

"Best?" It is just a preference.

The more boats you actually board and look around the more you will get a feeling for your own preferences.

Stop asking which (place any noun here) is "best." Visit a ton of boats and see what you like and don't like. That, I can honestly tell you, is "best."

[Neeltje]

Originally Posted by Bill Seal

Back when Carter tried to force the metric system on the US, almost all machine tools used decimal inches. To convert to metric would require changing all the lead screws and nuts on all lathes and mills in the US.
Now that the CNC tools are decimal, a computer does the math and drives the stepper motors.
BTW, centimeters are no longer used, the SI blessed units are only meters and millimeters, so your boat is now 30,250 mm long. Or is it 30.250 mm using the European convention. ???

Depends. If you ask a Frenchman, your "30,250 mm" boat is about 1.5 inches long, whereas the second one definitely qualifies as a "yacht" by anybody's standards.

You see, on top of messing with the mind of your average proponent of the Imperial system (decimalized or not), the metric system uses a comma where we use a decimal point, and vice-versa.

Professionals have been decimalizing inches and feet ever since they got their hands on the first Texas calculator, but it still doesn't make reading your typical American tape measure any easier.

Look at it this way: if you really wanted to decimalize imperial measurements, an inch would be divided into tenths of an inch, a yard would equal 100 inches, and a mile, a 1000 yards.

I don't know what you'd do with your "foot" (other than stick it in your mouth as many have been doing so far.. ;-)

Jacques

[avb3]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Fortunately US houses aren't build to last...

Mine is over 100 years old.

[Benz]

Stu, I think you've strayed onto the wrong thread. No one's bashing Catalinas here; this thread was begun by someone who arrogantly wanted to show that the Metric system was somehow better than the Sensible--it is a thread to bash all non-metriphiles.

K_V_B: I don't know why they use more than one system on some drawings. Whenever I make drawings I use feet, inches, and fractions of inches. Would that the whole rest of the world would join me in doing that! There would be no confusion about what system was being used if everyone was like me. By the way, I never have to argue about how much a gallon is--it's as much as will fit in a gallon milk jug! as for ounces, I have several little medicine measuring cups marked out in ounces and drams. Any measurement smaller than an eighth of an ounce is splitting hairs, and anyone who needs a digital scale to cook needs to lighten up. Dear me, cooking just requires tossing a little of this and that into a pot or pan and applying heat. I can't remember the last time I used a recipe. Perhaps that is the problem with metriphiles--they want to overthink everything, having no imagination of their own.

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Benz

Stu, I think you've strayed onto the wrong thread. No one's bashing Catalinas here; this thread was begun by someone who arrogantly wanted to show that the Metric system was somehow better than the Sensible--it is a thread to bash all non-metriphiles.

I only used it as an EXAMPLE and in a discussion of WHAT'S BEST, which is what this topic is all about, right? Thread drift happens, we all have learned to get over it, but I didn't mean it that way, honest.

I do like your cooking technique, mirrors mine. I also like the DRAM. Shall we have another, my dear?

[hellosailor]

"Could you live with thirty centimeters? "
Thir ty cen ti me ters.
Sure, if you can get that down to two syllables, as in "a foot".


Do Germans, with their obsession for precision and for making long concatenations of words rather then new short ones, really order five hundred grams of sausage when "a half kilo" would do?


"And how many yard is there on a mile? " Well, if you've got quarter-acre zoning, you might have some 2500 yards in a square mile. If the zoning laws are more practical, say ten acres per home, you might only have 64 yards.

[Mirage35]

Originally Posted by avb3

My uncle was a civil engineer who emigrated to Canada in the mid-50's from Germany.

Of course, he was not used to the Imperial system used then in Canada. One of his first jobs was to estimate concrete requirements for a large public works program.

Back in the day of the slide rule (which I now have), he converted the specifications to metric, did whatever magic engineers do, and once he had he result, converted that end result back to Imperial measurements.

His company won the bid. He often talked about that before he passed away.

Exactly what I did - so to repeat a favourite (note the British / Canadian spelling) story that I recently posted on another thread:

A couple of lifetimes ago I was developing software for a pipeline control system. We knew the length of the pipeline in miles, its diameter in feet ... and then had to calculate its volume in barrels.


Long live the metric system.

[Mirage35]

Originally Posted by Benz

By the way, I never have to argue about how much a gallon is--it's as much as will fit in a gallon milk jug!

US or Imperial gallon? That was part of the problem with the pipeline calculation - there are about five different definitions of "barrel" in the oil industry.

[Reefmagnet]

Being fluent in both systems, metric wins by a country mile. The only three things that should be measured in imperial, imo, are boat length, altitude and penis size. Never been quite sure if a nautical mile is an imperial unit or not but if it is that should be included, too.

My pet hate is measuring tools that are imperial one side and metric the other. Absolute pain in the neck to use.

[hellosailor]

But if you know a pipeline length in miles, that's feet. And if you know the diameter in feet, then it is simple math to get "cubic feet" of volume.


However, if you dabble into metric conversions, like gets far more complicated, as the Wikipedia mentions"
"
Maximum accuracy when converting bbl to cubic metres[edit]

The density of oil changes with temperature, so the above conversion is not exactly correct. Since some countries use imperial units while others use SI units, the American Petroleum Institute adopted two different methods for reporting the volume of oil. If volume is to be reported in bbl, then the volume will be measured at 14.696 psi and 60 °F. Likewise, the conditions are 101.325 kPa and 15 °C (or in some cases 20 °C) if the volume will be reported in m3. However, bbl and m3 are not exactly comparable. While the pressures of 14.696 psi and 101.325 kPa are exactly equivalent, the temperature 60 °F is equivalent to 15.56 °C. Since the measurement for m3 uses 15.00 °C instead of 15.56 °C, this difference will lead to a small error when converting between bbl and m3.
In addition, the magnitude of this error also depends on the type of oil. For a light oil with an API gravity of 35, warming the oil from 15.00 °C to 60.00 °F (which is 15.56 °C) might increase its volume by about 0.047%. Conversely, a heavy oil with an API gravity of 20 might only increase in volume by 0.039%. If physically measuring the density at a new temperature is not possible, then tables of empirical data can be used to accurately predict the change in density. In turn, this allows maximum accuracy when converting between bbl and m3."


The US oil industry has their own terms, and metric isn't "simply" one of them.

[Benz]

Originally Posted by AnglaisInHull

US or Imperial gallon? That was part of the problem with the pipeline calculation - there are about five different definitions of "barrel" in the oil industry.

That's the beauty of it all! Use whichever gallon milk jug you have handy. If in England, one of theirs; if in 'Merica, one of ours. In the unlikely event you have BOTH at hand, whichever you grab first. I repeat, the Metriphiles want to overthink everything.
Ben

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Reefmagnet

Being fluent in both systems, metric wins by a country mile. The only three things that should be measured in imperial, imo, are boat length, altitude and penis size. Never been quite sure if a nautical mile is an imperial unit or not but if it is that should be included, too.

My pet hate is measuring tools that are imperial one side and metric the other. Absolute pain in the neck to use.

And babies.. unfortunately they are measuring them in kg's now days too..

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

But if you know a pipeline length in miles, that's feet. And if you know the diameter in feet, then it is simple math to get "cubic feet" of volume.


However, if you dabble into metric conversions, like gets far more complicated, as the Wikipedia mentions"
"
Maximum accuracy when converting bbl to cubic metres[edit]

The density of oil changes with temperature, so the above conversion is not exactly correct. Since some countries use imperial units while others use SI units, the American Petroleum Institute adopted two different methods for reporting the volume of oil. If volume is to be reported in bbl, then the volume will be measured at 14.696 psi and 60 °F. Likewise, the conditions are 101.325 kPa and 15 °C (or in some cases 20 °C) if the volume will be reported in m3. However, bbl and m3 are not exactly comparable. While the pressures of 14.696 psi and 101.325 kPa are exactly equivalent, the temperature 60 °F is equivalent to 15.56 °C. Since the measurement for m3 uses 15.00 °C instead of 15.56 °C, this difference will lead to a small error when converting between bbl and m3.
In addition, the magnitude of this error also depends on the type of oil. For a light oil with an API gravity of 35, warming the oil from 15.00 °C to 60.00 °F (which is 15.56 °C) might increase its volume by about 0.047%. Conversely, a heavy oil with an API gravity of 20 might only increase in volume by 0.039%. If physically measuring the density at a new temperature is not possible, then tables of empirical data can be used to accurately predict the change in density. In turn, this allows maximum accuracy when converting between bbl and m3."


The US oil industry has their own terms, and metric isn't "simply" one of them.

That's funny but it's not a failure of the metric system or an illustration of the metric system. It's an example of the confusion of having so many different systems.