{"id":2456,"date":"2020-03-30T12:36:28","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T19:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2456"},"modified":"2020-04-06T09:26:14","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T16:26:14","slug":"nautical-terminator-fathom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/nautical-terminator\/nautical-terminator-fathom\/","title":{"rendered":"Nautical Terminator – Fathom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In your intro to navigation you\u2019ll be shown charts\nthat display soundings in feet, fathoms, and meters. These units are entirely\narbitrary, generated not by science but by history, the details of which are\noften murky. Ancient units were often, naturally enough, generated from human\nbody parts: a foot (now standardized to 12 inches), a step or pace (which\nbecame the yard, 36 inches), a hand (4 inches), and a fathom (6 feet), which\nwas originally the outstretched arms of a man. The\nmeter is ever-so-slightly more scientifically based<\/a> (don\u2019t\ntrouble yourself with that link) and is part of the International System of\nUnits<\/em>, abbreviated SI, the most commonly used system worldwide but not here.\nIn America, we consider it our patriotic duty to avoid being like everyone\nelse. This makes communicating with others a bother, which it should be. We\nalso have red, right, returning although much of the world uses green, right,\nreturning. We pity them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nautical history, being long and multicultural, is a\nmish mash of all kinds of terms and units of measure like \u201cchains\u201d (66 feet)\nand \u201cshots\u201d (roughly an ounce unless you\u2019re friends with the bartender) or \u201cshot\nof chain\u201d (90 feet or 15 fathoms) which is a different unit from chains or\nshots. A shot is usually the same as a \u201cshackle\u201d but I wouldn\u2019t count on it. The\n\u201cchain\u201d is more of a lubberly term; one-quarter of a chain is a rod, and 80\nchains is a furlong. But what you sailors want is a \u201ccable<\/a>\u201d\n(I wouldn\u2019t read that either) which is 120 fathoms or 720 feet American\nalthough the French, with their hoity-toity SI system, say it is 200 meters\nwhich works out to about, although not exactly, 109 fathoms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fathom, as far as I know, is always used for\ndepth. (Don\u2019t go into the Home Depot and try to order five square fathoms of\ncarpeting. Or actually, go ahead, give it a try.) Thus we have the phrase, to\n\u201cdeep six\u201d something, based on the tradition of burials at sea, which require\nthe body to be lowered to at least six fathoms. Still, in clear water, this\nwould not obscure the remains of the departed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, to summarize, as a practical example we can give\nthe following. Once I sailed through the Corinth Canal. The canal is 28 stadia\nor 23 cables or 256 chains or 9\/10 of a league or 2816 orguia, if it\u2019s easier\nfor you to think in those, or 16,896 feet or 1,024 rods or 25.6 furlongs or\n9,300 cubits (in biblical cubits; but of course in classical Greece, it would\nhave been 11,140 cubits, due to inflation), 3.202168898848118 statute miles, or\nfor us sailors, 2.7826086956521739 nautical miles long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope this clarifies things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there a salty term that you’d like to know the meaning or origin of? Many of of the terms and sayings that we use in every day life have nautical origins. Send us your questions and we’ll pass them on to Tony for thorough research and explanation!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In your intro to navigation you\u2019ll be shown charts that display soundings in feet, fathoms, and meters. These units are entirely arbitrary, generated not by science but by history, the details of which are often murky. Ancient units were often, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nautical-terminator"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2456"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2463,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions\/2463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tradewindssailing.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}