Conference unifix::sailing

As a facetious reply, with the proper cutting tool, a chain is whatever 
length you want it to be. 

Seriously, there may be a standard chain length, and the standard length 
may have changed over the years and may be different between ships and, 
say, land surveying (where chains are used and may be 100'). 

I don't recall hearing of anchoring so many chains off shore. I have
seen the statement of anchoring so many cables off shore. A cable is 120 
fathoms (720 feet), I think.

Cable may be correct. I've run across it several times in my 
readings of Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Captain Corageous, and
Strode Venturer. I'll have to find the reference again ... 

	Taking the hint from your dictionary search I looked in mine. It defines
a chain as "A unit of measure equal to about 100 links of chain or 20 meters or 
66 feet". 


	I'd go with your 66 foot number

Re:       <<< Note 2150.3 by MILKWY::HEADSL::SAMPSON "Driven by the wind" >>>
                   -< By Alan's definition, mine's 10 feet >-

>	I'd go with your 66 foot number

	Me too.  I believe a chain is also the length of a cricket pitch.  
	Hope this helps.

	Now, anyone know how many chains in a furlong?  Furlongs to the mile?

	Regards,
	Keith

    > furlongs per mile.
    
    I heard the new unit of spped inthe maritime world was to be
    furlongs per fortnight.
    
    Bill
    

    From my college days, a very useful unit of measure has remained stuck
    in the cobwebs of my mind.  Can you say demented?
    
    Speed of light
    
    C = 1.8x10^12 furlongs/fortnight
    
    
    Of course since we are all sailors, velocity should be measured in
    fornights/furlong.
    
    Doug Claflin
    dtn 244-7042
    

The cable is a unit of measurement still much used by the more traditional UK
yachting writers. 10 cables = 1 nautical mile, so 1 cable ~= 200yds.

A cricket wicket is 1 chain long (=22 yds). The size of a cricket pitch is
defined more or less by the perimeter of the field which contains it :-). 10
chains to a furlong, 8 furlongs to a mile (statute mile, of course - not
nautical)

I have seen chain measured in units of length of "shackles", but I cannot
remember how long a shackle is :-(.

The only connection between cricket and sailing that I know about is the annual
cricket match played on the drying Bramble Bank in the middle of the Solent each
year at the bottom of a particularly low spring tide. Strange English ritual...

- Brian

    8 furlongs per mile
    1 chain = 66 feet or 22 yards (surveyor's or Gunter's chain)
    1 furlong = 220 yards 
    
    10 chains = 1 furlong
    
    Now, how much or long is a shot of chain?  
    
    Brian

    This all takes me back to my school desk.  Chains, furlongs, fathoms,
    inches, feet, yards, ounces, pounds, stones, pounds, shillings and
    pence.  It certainly took some brain bashing to get the hang of them 
    all.
    
    It made me wonder, when my (then) 12 year old son asked me how long was
    a yard, whether "going metric" was such a good idea.  Call me a
    sentimental old formalist, if you will, but I can't help but feel a
    certain nostalgia with the passing of the old imperial measurement
    systems.
    
    On the other hand, well, on both hands actually, when all your
    batteries are flat and your hardwear is down, you can always resort to
    the original "digital computer".  When that happens, it's an advantage
    to never need to divide by anything other than ten.
    
     

    Speaking of when batteries are down...
    I keep a 5" slide rule in my nav kit. I used it when I took the power
    squadron exam back in '84. It drew a couple of interesting comments
    from the exam proctor. Just the thing for quickly solving 60D STreet
    problems. Even does simple trig quickly. But best of all, it rarely
    needs repair and the batteries never go flat.
    
    Bill
     

How long is a nautical league then? Again, the best I have been able to scrounge up
is a definition to the effect "between 2.2 and 4.? miles"...

Michael

I have always taken it as being 3 nautical miles, but I have a feeling that it
was a unit that was never really standardised and can vary from around 3 to 7
nm. It was probably in use in the earliest days of navigation, when no-one could
measure longitude and so you aimed off to one side and ran down the line of
latitude using some relatively primitive sextant-substitute. Given that people
crossed oceans without knowing about compass variation and many of the other
things we take for granted, little things like not agreeing on the exact length
of a "league" maybe wasn't so important :-).

- Brian

... in his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that 11,340 miles 
(doesn't specify statute or nautical) is the equivalent of
5250 French leagues. Division gives 2.16 miles in a league.
This is not, though, the only use of a league. Can others
comment?

    All this is a perfect example of why the metric system is best. Here we
    have a bunch of highly educated college graduates who are expert
    professionally and in their chosen hobby, in the largest industrial
    country in the world, and whose native measurement system is the
    English system, who can't figure out the definition of some of the
    basic units of measure. The equivalent metric units are so logical that
    any second-grade kid in a metric country already has already mastered
    them...
    
    [soapbox -x]
    
    :*)
    
    Doug.

I'm not sure how accurate it is, but there's a package for the Macintosh called
"Engineering Assistant". Among other things, it has lots of conversions between
various formats. From its tables, using a foot as the target:

    1 Engineer's chain = 100 ft
    1 Survey chain = 66 ft
    1 Furlong = 660.0066 ft
    1 League (land) = 15,846.4567 ft
    1 League (nautical) = 18,241.4698 ft
    1 Mile (international nautical) = 6076.1155 ft
    1 Mile (UK nautical) = 6079.9869 ft

 - Ken

    Re .14:
    
    Metric is great, celcius, kilometers, grams etc. make wonderful sense.
    But you still can't get rid of the nautical mile if you're a navigator!

    Ah yes, if only they had got that right...I think this is another thing
    for which we can forever blame the French:-)
    
    When they defined the standard meter it was to be 1/100,000 of one
    degree of longitude with the prime meridian passing through Paris
    (where else?).  This would have made 1 degree equal to 100km and saved
    everyone a lot of trouble.  Unfortunately they got it wrong and it
    turned out to be 111.2km...sigh.
    
    Axel