Why Sailors Measure in Knots ⚓️
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Morning Skipper!
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Are you out at sea right now?
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Huh?
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What are you talking about?
As a matter of fact, why do sailors measure speed in knots?
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Okay then…
Without Durd, imagine you’re Christopher Columbus.
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Ya and square measurements – like measuring length and width with a ruler – don’t work well on round things.
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Luckily, this ancient Greek, Hipparchus, realized this.
So he divided the Earth into a grid of imaginary lines.
Latitude – the equator and all the lines parallel to it.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/65165bacb95e549e226ae87d_EDIT1B.webp)
And longitude – the prime meridian and all the lines running through the North and South Poles.
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When we measure round things, we use a unit called degrees.
And our smart friend, Hipparchus, assigned 0 degrees to the equator and 90 degrees to the North Pole.
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But what about any time Columbus is between degrees of latitude?
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Well, we’ll have to break the degree down further.
And because Hipparchus used a base-60 system, 1 degree became equal to 60 minutes.
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And the nautical mile – the distance Columbus needs to track on his round globe — equals 1 minute of latitude.
Here’s his whole trip:
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/65165bacd8ee70c60b307b17_G1M.webp)
A knot is a measure of speed.
It’s just how many nautical miles you’ll cover in 1 hour!
So if you’re traveling at 16 knots, you’ll cover 16 nautical miles per hour.
Aka 16 minutes of latitude or longitude.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/65165bacdca21b3a27ae145a_G3N.webp)
And at that speed it’ll take you 11 days to get to Asia, Columbus. If you ever do…
Stay Cute,
Henry & Dylan 🌈
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