From what I know the vast majority of nautical travel is measured in knots. It just feels a little ancient for this world of technology. Wether it’s a ship or amphibious craft the speed is always knots. We have pretty reliable GPS and satellite nav nowadays even to the point you can buy a GPS speedometer for less than $50 for your car. I completely understand the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” philosophy but surely it would make life just that little bit easier for sailors and captains to have their speed in MPH/KPH?
In: 579
Because all the supporting infrastructure is in nautical miles and a knot is 1 nautical mile per hour.
All the charts have nautical mile scales and, as others noted, there’s a really convenient conversation between latitude and nautical miles.
All the instruments are in knots. All the vessel speeds and figures are in knots. GPS can tell you speed in any units you want, including knots. Every sailor around the planet is trained in knots.
So knots works great with everything. Changing to mph or kph wouldn’t be easier, it would be far more annoying because now you have to convert everything on the fly, MASSIVELY increasing the chance of error.
It’s the same reason the US still does machining in inches…when ALL your infrastructure is in one unit that everyone knows, changing isn’t just hard, it’s an actively bad idea.
Latest Answers