Why do sailors use knots rather than miles per hour?

Answer 1

In the early days of sailing, sailors would throw a log with a knotted rope tied to it into the water and measure how many knots went over the side in a given length of time. If you want to know more, go to Wiki and look up nautical mile.

Answer 2

rabbit gives a good. if long answer....my standard short form answer to this question is:

sailors have been sailing around for a thousand years.

a land mile, till standardized in the 1800's was a variable thing.

It could have been a Roman mile.....how far a Roman Legionnaire covered in a thousand......(mille, mile) paces, or an English mile or a French mile or a whatever mile.

a nautical mile is based on the circumference of the Earth, one minute of latitude being a mile ( hence the phrase a mile a minute, which has nothing to do with 60MPH). 60 minutes in a degree times 360 degrees in a circle is 21,600 nautical miles around the world at the Equator or from pole to pole no matter where you are.

This is a nice it doesn't change from King to King or government to government measurement that sailors, who have a very profound interest in knowing where they are, agreed to internationally a long time ago.

Answer 3

There is international standardisation for measurement of speed for maritime and air transport. The logic being that you are more likely to be travelling over water than land as Earth's surface has far more water than it has dry land. All aircraft measure speed in knots, because nautical miles (NM) are the international measure of distance. A knot is one nautical mile per hour. So it doesn't matter whether you are flying in a country that uses imperial measurements, or metric measurements, speeds of all aircraft must be, and are, measured in the same way. A NM is further than a statute mile, so a knot is faster.

Answer 4

Marine navigators use knots because they measure distance in nautical miles instead of statute miles. Knots is a measure of speed in nautical miles per hour. It is incorrect to say, "knots per hour" The "...per hour" is implied.

Aircraft navigators use the same units of measure.

Answer 5

Knots is a nautical term. Knots and miles have different measurements, just like standard & metric. & Bearings differ,
True bearing, which is true north, and
Relative bearing is where north is forward of the bow.
"Anchors Away"

Answer 6

A professional mariner should know that there are six feet in a fathom. The name derives from the Old English word fæðm meaning "outstretched arms." In Middle English it was fathme. Its size can vary from system to system. The most commonly used fathom today is the international fathom. There are 2 yards (6 feet) in a fathom. In 1958 the United States and countries of the Commonwealth of Nations defined the length of the international yard to be 0.9144 meters. Consequently, the international fathom is defined to be equal to 1.8288 meters.

1 international fathom is equal to:
6 feet (1 foot is about 0.1667 fathoms)
2 yards (1 yard is exactly 0.5 fathoms)
1.8288 meters (1 meter is about 0.5468 fathoms)
72 inches

Prior to that standardization on the international fathom, the British Admiralty defined a fathom to be a thousandth of an imperial nautical mile (which was 6080 ft) or 6.08 feet. This is equivalent to 1.853184 meters.

Answer 7

Back in the day when tall ships sailed the world's oceans speed was determined by letting out a drag on a line and then counting how many knots tied into the line woulds be let out in a period of minutes.

Answer 8

Knots are based on a Nautical mile which is longer than a regular mile. Therefore, a knot is always slower than MPH.

Answer 9

because in the sailors tradition of finding their way at sea; or what is now referred to as "navigation". the sailor employed "Celestial Navigation". navigation with the help of some of the Stars, the Moon, and our Sun.
to make a very long an complicated subject as short as i can, and not just cop-out by pointing you to some web-site as some lay-man mite do. let me take you through some simple logic that any seaman can remember.
any circle and or globe is dividend into 360 degrees of circumference. now when one is talking about a "planet" such as earth, and one is trying to find ones place on the face of that planet. the best way is too figure-out just how far it is between each of those 360 degrees of circumference around the planet. well, as it turned out, this was taken care of many, many centuries ago. and it was calculated for ocean explores who traveled over the flat, though rounded surface of the water.
the way it came out is that in one hour, the sun appears to moves across the surface of the earth at the equator, 15 degrees. of course that makes it very easy for the sailor to remember that 15 degrees of earth rotation, or sun movement across the earth at the equator; = one hour of actual time. this is how sun-dials work. now as it also works out, when they divided one degree of the sun's movement across the earth at the equator into 60 = parts so that it would be easy to work with. the distance they came up with is what we now call a Nautical mile. and there are 2000 yards to a nautical mile. and by the way, a "Fathom" is also three foot or one yard long.
and here is the great part! there are 60 Nautical Miles in every degree of Longitude at the equator, and only at the equator. and there are 60 of them in every degree of latitude. that is why you will never see an experienced navigator looking for the distance scale on any chart.
the reason the seaman uses the nautical mile can basically be summed up in that we find our way by the "Celestial Sphere"; witch is an imaginary sphere above the sphere of the earth or "terrestrial sphere". that permits the seaman or navigator to find a celestial bodies location on the celestial sphere. and then transfer that location to a position on the terrestrial sphere (earth). from which we get a calculated distance too.

and as someone kindly ponted out my miss-print above;
(thank you very much)
there are of course, three foot in a yard, and six foot in a fathom. thank You again......... :)(:


this is as simple as it can possibly be made accurately.....

PS. could someone check this for grammar as well?

Answer 10

Tradition.