Does anyone measure distance in "Cables"?

[markpierce]

Cables, one step away from fathoms.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I reckon its time to bring back the kenning.... if you can ken the land its time to hove to...

And yes ... using 'nautical' ahead of the mile shows the utterer to be serious lubberly....

Heave!!!

[Exile]

Originally Posted by SunnyJ

Had a Navy Captain who went bonkers when subordinates mentioned, "Nautical Miles". Yes we are in a vessel, on the waterways and therefore it is implied that we will not use "Statute" miles. Nautical Miles are for Weekend Warrior Yachtie types he would yammer.

Unless you're traversing the intracoastal waterway on the e. coast of the U.S. Then "statute" miles are used. Not exactly sure why, but probably for historical reasons. (The AICW was originally conceived in the late 18th century).

[TrentePieds]

BINGO, Stu :-0)!

And as for Kennings, you are WAY off, Pinguino - a "kenning" is a set of alliterative allusions and metaphors used in ancient Norse poetry. Ancient Saxon poetry, too, for that matter. A phrase such as "sjöhingst over whales' acres gently glided" would be an example. But you are on the right path. "Kenning" has the same root as Scottish "ken" - to know or to perceive. The trick in Norse Poetry is for the "skjald" (poet or storyteller) to bury his story in so many layers of kennings, kenning laid upon kenning, that only the most erudite will ken his meaning. Norse poets tended to be competitive :-)

TrentePieds

[roland stockham]

Yes we ALL use cable. All marine charts measure distance in nautical miles and cables even if depth has been converted to meters. Look at any habour chart. the black bars dividing the miles into 10 are cables. Even if you choose to rely on electronics you should at least know how to read a chart This standard is kept because it relates to degrees - 1 mile is one min of ark and one cable is 1/10 min

[reed1v]

British term. Mostly still used in the shipping industry for sizing, guess what, cables. Anchor lines, underseas cables, guide wires, etc. Industrial term, not for the weekend sailor.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

BINGO, Stu :-0)!

And as for Kennings, you are WAY off, Pinguino - a "kenning" is a set of alliterative allusions and metaphors used in ancient Norse poetry. Ancient Saxon poetry, too, for that matter. A phrase such as "sjöhingst over whales' acres gently glided" would be an example. But you are on the right path. "Kenning" has the same root as Scottish "ken" - to know or to perceive. The trick in Norse Poetry is for the "skjald" (poet or storyteller) to bury his story in so many layers of kennings, kenning laid upon kenning, that only the most erudite will ken his meaning. Norse poets tended to be competitive :-)

TrentePieds

Dig a little deeper....
A 'kenning' was a measurement used at sea on both sides of the southern North Sea... the distance at which you could 'ken' the ( low lying ) land... about three miles... nautical, statute, whatever... about three thousand roman paces... hence mile from mille .....

[StuM]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Dig a little deeper....
A 'kenning' was a measurement used at sea on both sides of the southern North Sea... the distance at which you could 'ken' the ( low lying ) land... about three miles... nautical, statute, whatever... about three thousand roman paces... hence mile from mille .....

Hmm, I understood it to be the distance you could see high land features - about 20 miles.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by StuM

Hmm, I understood it to be the distance you could see high land features - about 20 miles.

That is the highland version.... lowland version is 3 .....

[TrentePieds]

I dug - but I don't dig ;-)

The key to my skepticism is in the shifts in vernacular usage over time. The English that was spoken in England, and more so in Scotland, was, in the early 16thC, as all lovers of Shakespeare will admit, rather different from ours. "Translations" into modern English, and likewise into modern Canadian and American, require some care. Such translations may be easier for those of us with a nodding acquaintance of other Germanic languages and dialects, particularly of the North Germanic ones - the sundry brands of Scowegian, Platdeutsch, Friesian, Icelandic...

Despite the OED claiming that a kenning is a distance measure of defined length, I remain skeptical. "Kenning" was no doubt used to denote distance, but its meaning was, I would think, more akin to "as far as the eye can see" than to "21 miles". In fact, when "Kenning", as relating to distance, was in current use, measures of distance, including the mile, were indeed "elastic". We were not yet into the "age of reason" and other French aberrations. Remember that this was long before the "sea mile" was defined as a fraction of the Earth's circumference. It was also before John Harrison's magnificent time-piece, so the TDS calculation that you and I take for granted had not yet acquired meaning.

Thus, when we read "Ye Fleymings... not to cum neirer to the schoire... than ane land kenning of the said schoire” I would think that the fairest translation would be "...Dutch [ships] shall not come within sight [ken, perception] of the shore."

That regulation was given in Queen Lizzie I's time, and it was the job of the "Queen's Ships" (the embryonic RN) to keep the "Flamlanders" away from her realm, it being common wisdom at the time that Dutchmen are nothing by trouble. It's a fair certainty that if one of Lizzy's ships could "ken" the shore, any Flemming inshore of her would be in for a mauling. That's what the contretemps with the Dutch Admiral Maarten Tromp (there is that name again :-0)!) was all about.

But don't get me started, or I'll launch into the quantitative differences twixt the various inches and feet and ells and yards and fathoms and miles and leagues that inhabited the European world in those days.

TrentePieds

[El Pinguino]

Nice bit of research there.... my first mention ^^^^^^ on the kenning was based on some research done some 25 years ago for a small piece I had published. A good source that I used and well worth a read is a book on the history of navigation published by Brown, Son, and Ferguson of Glasgow... don't recall the exact name .. its been a long time.

I don't think the kenning was a defined length .. it was 'about'... not as if anyone stepped out of the boat and measured it....same as a mile was 'about' and there were so many different ones .. spanish , russian, etc... which is why the english decided to define theirs by 'statute'.

( the reference to highland kennings above was a yoke btw..)

Speaking of history I'm going to be out of inet range for a spell... off to Estero Quintupeu after brekky... a place with a bit of history all of its own.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by markpierce

Cables, one step away from fathoms.

You mean, one step away from obsolescence?

If that's what you meant, then I would politely disagree.

Fathoms are part of an obsolete system of measurement which includes feet and statute miles. Never mind that feet are very ancient, going back to Romans and before, they are a dead end and used almost nowhere anymore. They will go the way of the cubit. All these measurements have been replaced with meters, which are so much more usable than the old system. There is no need for a fathom, when you have two meters. (Note, however, that fathom is almost exactly 1/1000 of a mile! So we could well imagine a modernized fathom so defined -- a "millimile" or a "centicable".)

But the cable is a fraction of a nautical mile, which is most certainly not obsolete. The nautical mile is related to angles of latitude and relates intuitively to navigation. The Wikipedia article on nautical miles actually claims that the nautical mile has become an SI Derived Unit (since it has now been defined as an even number of meters), so part of the metric system, but I think this is a mistake.

The cable is a really useful unit of measurement for close distances. You could say "x hundred meters" and that would sort of work, but cables are really easy to visualize and use, and unlike a quantity of meters, they relate directly to miles. Cables aren't going anywhere, and I was surprised to learn from this thread that there are sailors who don't use them.

In Northern Europe at least, cables are the universal way to describe distances of less than a mile and more than a few meters, so very common unit in pilotage situations, and are universally used in pilot books ("Take care to avoid the obstruction 3 cables W of the Eastern entrance to X harbour"). Also to describe crossing distances during collision avoidance procedures.

For doing precise chart work in a pilotage situation, meters would actually be quite awkward to use, whereas you can read cables directly.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You mean, one step away from obsolescence?

If that's what you meant, then I would politely disagree.

Fathoms are part of an obsolete system of measurement which includes feet and statute miles. Never mind that feet are very ancient, going back to Romans and before, they are a dead end and used almost nowhere anymore. They will go the way of the cubit. All these measurements have been replaced with meters, which are so much more usable than the old system. There is no need for a fathom, when you have two meters. (Note, however, that fathom is almost exactly 1/1000 of a mile! So we could well imagine a modernized fathom so defined -- a "millimile" or a "centicable".)

But the cable is a fraction of a nautical mile, which is most certainly not obsolete. The nautical mile is related to angles of latitude and relates intuitively to navigation. The Wikipedia article on nautical miles actually claims that the nautical mile has become an SI Derived Unit (since it has now been defined as an even number of meters), so part of the metric system, but I think this is a mistake.

The cable is a really useful unit of measurement for close distances. You could say "x hundred meters" and that would sort of work, but cables are really easy to visualize and use, and unlike a quantity of meters, they relate directly to miles. Cables aren't going anywhere, and I was surprised to learn from this thread that there are sailors who don't use them.

In Northern Europe at least, cables are the universal way to describe distances of less than a mile and more than a few meters, so very common unit in pilotage situations, and are universally used in pilot books ("Take care to avoid the obstruction 3 cables W of the Eastern entrance to X harbour"). Also to describe crossing distances during collision avoidance procedures.

For doing precise chart work in a pilotage situation, meters would actually be quite awkward to use, whereas you can read cables directly.

Still very much alive and well and useful. When you know a cable is , for instance, about 3 boat lengths it can be a very useful rapid way to visualize shorter distances.
Long may it continue.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Despite the OED claiming that a kenning is a distance measure of defined length, I remain skeptical. "Kenning" was no doubt used to denote distance, but its meaning was, I would think, more akin to "as far as the eye can see" than to "21 miles". In fact, when "Kenning", as relating to distance, was in current use, measures of distance, including the mile, were indeed "elastic". We were not yet into the "age of reason" and other French aberrations. Remember that this was long before the "sea mile" was defined as a fraction of the Earth's circumference. It was also before John Harrison's magnificent time-piece, so the TDS calculation that you and I take for granted had not yet acquired meaning.

Thus, when we read "Ye Fleymings... not to cum neirer to the schoire... than ane land kenning of the said schoire” I would think that the fairest translation would be "...Dutch [ships] shall not come within sight [ken, perception] of the shore."

Which is basically what I said, and why I used "about 20 miles"

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

But the cable is a fraction of a nautical mile, which is most certainly not obsolete. The nautical mile is related to angles of latitude and relates intuitively to navigation. The Wikipedia article on nautical miles actually claims that the nautical mile has become an SI Derived Unit (since it has now been defined as an even number of meters), so part of the metric system, but I think this is a mistake.

Wot? A mistake on Wikipedia? Shirley knot!

Ashley, you are quite correct. Whoever wrote that has a misconception about what a "derived unit" is.

The current SI status of Nautical Mile is one of the:
"Other units outside the SI that are currently accepted for use with the SI, subject to further review"