A cable length or length of cable is a
nautical
Seamanship is the art, knowledge and competence of operating a ship, boat or other craft on water. The'' Oxford Dictionary'' states that seamanship is "The skill, techniques, or practice of handling a ship or boat at sea."
It involves topics ...
unit
Unit may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* UNIT, a fictional military organization in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''
* Unit of action, a discrete piece of action (or beat) in a theatrical presentation
Music
* ''Unit'' (a ...
of measure equal to one tenth of a
nautical mile or approximately 100
fathoms
A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems equal to , used especially for measuring the depth of water. The fathom is neither an International Standard (SI) unit, nor an internationally-accepted non-SI unit. Hi ...
. Owing to anachronisms and varying techniques of measurement, a cable length can be anywhere from 169 to 220
metres
The metre (British spelling
Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable va ...
, depending on the standard used. The unit is named after the length of a ship's
anchor
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄΠ...
cable in the
Age of Sail.
The definition varies:
* International: 185.2
m, equivalent to
nautical mile
*
Imperial (
Admiralty): 185.32 m, or
nautical mile, about 101
fathoms
** The traditional British fathom varied from in the
Merchant Navy, making the "historical" cable 169 m to 215.5 m.
*
US customary (
US Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
): 219.5 metres, 120 fathoms (720 feet)
See also
*
Conversion of units
Conversion of units is the conversion between different units of measurement for the same quantity, typically through multiplicative conversion factors which change the measured quantity value without changing its effects.
Overview
The process ...
References
* . Als
"fathom" from the same work (pp. 88–89, retrieved 12 January 2017).
* .
{{sailing-stub
Nautical terminology
Units of length
Customary units of measurement in the United States