4 ms·
Funny story: I was in Spain several years ago and was talking to a guy I met about sailboats. I mentioned I had a boat, and he asked how big. I thought for a
by 13of40 4y ago
Funny story: I was in Spain several years ago and was talking to a guy I met about sailboats. I mentioned I had a boat, and he asked how big. I thought for a second and said "7 meters" so as not to be an ignorant American. He thought for a second and said "huh, 21 feet".
- alex_young 4y agoExcept it’s closer to 23 feet right?
- 13of40 4y agoIf you carry a calculator in your pocket, but if you're just casually converting, 3 feet per meter is pretty good. 100 square meters is about 1000 square feet as well. Not legal for tax purposes, but good enough to understand how big a place is.
- cardiffspaceman 4y ago40 inches per meter is easy to remember and pretty accurate
- slim 4y agohow many inches per feet ?
- nicoburns 4y ago12
- damiankennedy 4y ago12 inches per foot 3 feet per yard 1760 yards per mile
- hanche 4y agoOr ten feet per three meters, since longer distances are rarely measured in inches anyhow.. The proverbial ten foot pole is 3048 mm long.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoThe only time anyone wants to know the exact length of a sailboat is if there’s a concern about it fitting in some space. At all other times, your incentive is to make the biggest lie you can get away with.
- kypro 4y agoI'm not sure what the situation is in other European countries, but in the UK we use different units depending on the use so most people are use to working with both imperial and metric. Perhaps with the exception of fahrenheit most people here will know what you mean if you use units like feet and will often even prefer thinking in feet over metres for certain things. Personally I default to feet for something like height or a floorplan, although I can think in metres quite easily too.
- tempestn 4y agoSame thing in Canada.
- exDM69 4y agoNo, not many people in continental Europe are comfortable with miles, feet and inches. But sailboat length is traditionally measured in feet. Same for aircraft altitude. So sailors and aviators are more likely to use feet (and nautical miles) as measurement.
- hanche 4y agoAnd knots. Speed limits at sea in Norway (in harbours and other places with much traffic and little room for maneuvering) are always in knots. But we measure water depth in meters, not fathoms.
- kimburgess 4y agoNautical miles have nothing to do with imperial units. It's now defined in reference to SI meter, but it originates as 1/60th of a degree of latitude.
- defrost 4y ago> it originates as 1/60th of a degree of latitude. So ... not even a fixed length but one that varies by latitude (given the Earth is an oblate spheroid | rotated ellipsoid | flattened sphere) that's something on the order of 20 metres of sloppiness by my reckoning.
- throwaway4good 4y agoIt is sailing lingo to use feet and (nautical) mile.
- SergeAx 4y agoMeasuring boats in feet is a tradition. Also, these numbers are bigger. 50 feet is a big boat. Compare with mere 15 meters. BTW, docking price lists are still in meters.