Does anyone measure distance in "Cables"?

[StuM]

Originally Posted by conachair

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.

Only if you boat is about 200 foot long.

I usually think in terms of a couple of football fields.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by StuM

Only if you boat is about 200 foot long.

I usually think in terms of a couple of football fields.

Doh! Thinking of something else, never post before coffee

[StuM]

Originally Posted by conachair

Doh! Thinking of something else, never post before coffee

A shot maybe?

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "...a cable is , for instance, about 3 boat lengths..."

One helluva yot, that :-0)!

TP

[redhead]

Dockhead writes "They will go the way of the cubit."

I have been sitting on my hands not mentioning cubits for 3 days while I read this thread. Dockhead, thank you, what a relief!

[JPA Cate]

We may laugh at cubits, but I'd like to say a word for them, having watched people using their bodies to measure things by. Using them teaches one to use proportions. You got things like the beam of the boat being 1/3 its length. Some boats were bigger than others (boatwright had longer forearms.) Your measuring tool is always with you, and is free. There's another one in common use: the "hand". It was standardized at 4" across the palm of an "average" hand. It is used to discuss the height of the withers of a horse from the ground. AFAIK, no one but horse people talk in hands. Now, people's hands are often larger, the measure is from before some of us were fed so much we grew larger as a morph of our species.

We need to have ways to communicate distances, for many reasons, and cables works, just not in the common vocabulary, in much the same way as "paradimehtylaminobenzaldehyde" is not. Cable, for measuring, is a word specific to seafaring, not negotiations or chemistry, a measure necessary to smooth anchoring in anchoring fields for shipping, and useful for us small ships as well.

Ann

[Pelagic]

Yes Ann, but we all know the men are known to be subjective and unreliable in measuring their appendages.

Be it Trumps hands or Weiner's.....? Wiener....[emoji57]

[TrentePieds]

Bravo, Ann!


The point is precisely the one you take – things that are meant to accommodate, or to be worked by, the human body need to be related dimensionally to the said body. Some fraction of an unimaginable distance such as the earth's circumferential distance from the north pole to the equator along a great circle running through Paris, obviously doesn't cut the ice!


Because we have had the Metric System beaten into us, we tend to go along with some vaguely understood notion that the units of measure we use in our daily lives are decimal FRACTIONS of some larger “basis unit” Pure Froggified codswallop! The units we use are MULTIPLES of some smaller traditional, non-metric basis unit.


The basis unit we use in this neckathewoods for lineal measure is the length of the second phalanx of a grown mans thumb, i.e. the inch. Quaintly, in Scowegian an inch is called "en tomme", i.e. a “thumb”. A dozen of them make a foot, three of them a yard (tho in Danish measure, two of them make an ell, and there is no yard), six of them make a fathom, “because that is all you can fathom”. In current Scowegian “favn'' ( = fathom) is still the root of the word for “embrace”. A sheaf or a fasces is six feet in circumference because “that is all you can fathom”, that being the distance twixt opposing fingertips on a grown man's out-spread arms. For greater distances, as we've discussed, we become a little vague. A cable before the “age of enlightenment” that obfuscated to many things was 120 yards. The reason for that is that we can handle PROPER fractions and small multipliers, say up to the number 6, in our heads without really having to think about it. DECIMAL fractions, and multipliers from 7 on up, not so much!


Going the other way from the inch, PROPER fractions of inches are intuitively comprehensible. DECIMAL fractions, not so much. Do you know off the top of your head, intuitively, the distance that is 343 “thou”? Well, I don't either.


When we are talking distances measured in cables, I really don't care if we mean 200 yards, 200 metres, 600 feet, or a tenth of a mile. Such a distance is not intuitively comprehensible, and that is because the multiplier (applied to something that IS comprehensible) is too great. Or the divisor, however small, is applied to something that is INcomprehensibe. The metric system is fine for microbiologists and astrologers. It's an abomination for sailors :-)


It didn't take me long when I came to this 'ere colony to discard the metric system for something more apposite for WHAT I DO, viz the “imperial” system. Though I grew up with it, the metric system is a pain to use. Because the modulus is WRONG in that it has no reference to the human body. Not even to parts of unfortunately named US congressmen!


TP

[first wind]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

10 metre marks are a pain. I like to drop the hook where I, at low water, will have one fathom under me all within the circle of my swing. That'll rise to 6 or 7 fathoms at high water on a typical spring tide around here. 6 fathoms and a scope of 7 is 42 fathoms. 40 fathoms is close enuff, so my cable is marked every five fathoms. Unconventional, but it works for me. Guess what 5 fathoms converts to in metres ;-0)!

TrentePieds

wow. don't know where you sail but, i thought our wintertime tidal range was bad. it's hard enough getting from your boat to the dock wen the tide drops only 3 or 4 feet. i can't imagine a tidal range of 30 feet or better!

[first wind]

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....

kennings? you mean the poetic technique used in migration age Germanic poetry; like the Anglo-Saxon "hronrada", meaning whale road, as a kenning for the ocean?

[first wind]

Originally Posted by Exile

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).

it's a navigational rule. statute miles are used on inland waterways.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by Exile

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).

Rivers and lakes are in Statute miles too.

[first wind]

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

ahh i see you got there before me. very good. the 'Scottish' word ken isn't really Scottish. it's Germanic. The Scots picked it up from the various Germanic people ( Saxons and Vikings) that they had interaction with. a similar thing is seen with the Scottish word spae wife which actually derives from Anglo-Saxon spanwif and Norse spakona. anyhow...

Anglo-Saxon(old english) cunnan (to know) cennan(to make known)
middle English (think Chaucer) kennan
old Norse kenna
and
German kennan


ken means to know. literally, a kenning was a knowing. meaning that they often referred to well known elements l of religious stories or well known parts of daily life and a knowledgeable person would know what they meant.

interestingly enough, the modern word '****', which is now derogatory, also comes from the Anglo-Saxon cunnan. Germanic heathens consider women to be close to the divine because they give birth. unlike many of the more southern cultures, they didn't consider women to be useless once they were past child bearing years. thus, there is no true 'crone' element in Germanic mythology. instead, older women were revered for their wisdom. even big, bold vikings never set out on a venture without consulting with the village wise woman or the oldest woman in his family. the story of Agnar and Geirrod shows that this applies to the Gods, as well. thus, the word ken became associated with women.

[first wind]

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 .....

actually, his definition is older and, thus, he dug the deeper.

and your use of the word ken and kenning also derives from to old word
meaning to know. it's an archaic form in modern English. i believe it's only use is in poetry after a certain point in time. you know, 'beyond the ken of man' and stuff like that.

in your example above, replace the word ken, that i put in bold, with know and you will see what i mean.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by first wind

wow. don't know where you sail but, i thought our wintertime tidal range was bad. it's hard enough getting from your boat to the dock wen the tide drops only 3 or 4 feet. i can't imagine a tidal range of 30 feet or better!

There are a few areas around the world with that sort of range including places in Canada, UK, India and Australia that I am aware of.


Reputedly, the Bay of Fundy in Canada has the largest with around 15 meters (50ft)!