fathoms

sailingforever · #1 (**permalink**) 04-15-2006

how many feet is a fathom?

merc2dogs · #2 (**permalink**) 04-15-2006

believe it's 6 feet per.

confirmed:

http://www.ilpi.com/msdS/ref/distanceunits.html

has a fair table

also, typing something such as "4 fathoms in feet", " fathom in feet", or "10mm in inches" into google will convert it

Ken.

sailingforever · #3 (**permalink**) 04-15-2006

I just looked in my wonderful new sailing book called Sailing Fundamentals( hope I spelled that right!), and a fathom is 6 ft.

sailingdog · #4 (**permalink**) 04-15-2006

Might also be interested in knowing that a cable is 720 feet or 120 fathoms

RogerConrad · #5 (**permalink**) 04-15-2006

and a league is three miles, but are they nautical or statuate?

sailingdog · #6 (**permalink**) 04-15-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerConrad

and a league is three miles, but are they nautical or statuate?

Nautical miles... as seen http://www.ninnescah.org/library/glossaryl.htm

yachtvalhalla · #7 (**permalink**) 04-22-2006

FWIW, a related bit of information is that charts which show depths in fathoms will express them as, for example, 6-1 (with a smaller figure 1 than the figure 6) which is interpreted as fathoms plus feet, or a depth of 37 feet.

And, of course you will find charts showing depths in meters which you can 'roughly' convert by multiplying by 3.

Most depth guages allow you to select the displayed units so you can synchronize the display with the chart but I find that a bit confusing so usually do the math in the head. With approaching age I may have to change the display :-)

Terry

Faster · #8 (**permalink**) 05-05-2006

Valhalla:

Since a meter is a tad over three feet (39.3") I'd say you better use a factor of 2 rather than 3 for converting to fathoms, or you may get a nasty surprise one day.

OOPs - sorry - guess you were converting to feet........

nolatom · #9 (**permalink**) 05-05-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailingdog

Might also be interested in knowing that a cable is 720 feet or 120 fathoms

I always thought it was a tenth of a nautical mile, or 600 feet. So Googled it, and saw both 600 and 720 mentioned. Most of the blue-water merchant captains I've talked to said they use 1/10 mile, 10 cables in a mile. Maybe the "common" measurement has overtaken the "correct" one.

garyp · #10 (**permalink**) 05-09-2006

A cable is 1/10 of a nautical mile. A fathom is 1/1000 of a nautical mile. A nautical mile is 1 second of latitude (1/60 of a degree)
I think.