Club 80-90 Forums

Half a gnats "cock" was a fairly fine unit of measurement I my mould making days

bigbadbob76 wrote:As one first registered in '76 I mostly use the same units for the same things as you Paul.
Although I use a mix of metres/feet for larger measurements and also throw in Nautical miles and knots but that's sea specific and I still use metres for anything under 1 nautical or statute mile, not thousands/hundreds of yards or decimal miles like some do. I mean come on, what's with the decimal miles?

At sea we had distances in chains - especially on anchor watch you needed to know how many chain lengths of anchor chain were let out. The radar rings were set in chains. It was a problem when the charts went over to metres a chart depth of 10 fathoms is one heck of a difference when you mistake 10 metres for fathoms!
We landed whelks in a measurement of a wash, they were sold in the shops by the pint. ( A wash is 4 measures or 2 pecks - a peck is 2 gallons)
A good days work was 20 wash which were nearly all sent up to Billingsgate by train.
Suck the juices out of that lot!

Hahahaha.... good one OBG, for anchor chain we use "shackles", one shackle every 90 ft.
Wilks (winkles) were measured by the "bag" one bag being half a stone.

Tobydog- I think that's the same as a "baw hair" up here.

The shackles were joining every chain, chain being 11 fathom/22 yds. I think it was all to do with the maximum length that chain could be used/made/handled in the murky past. With modern manufacturing and handling the lengths have increased presumably.
I once had 3 fathom of 3 inch chain for my moorings ground chain from some mates who had a tug/diving firm - I put it in the back of my Volvo estate and went down the road with the tow bar bouncing on the tarmac. It is still the ground chain for the mooring after 20 years!

Yeah, I guessed it had to be something to do with manufacturing lengths of chain, Dunno why we use 90ft lengths and say "four shackles out" rather than use 66ft lengths and say "five chains out". one more confusion to add to the list.

Quick google of the origins gives 15 fathoms for a ships chain so your 90 ft is correct. My recollections are wrong. It is solely the land chain measurement that is 11 fathoms, somehow my brain has ceased to function as well as it should. Best I dig out my old seamanship and ship's construction textbooks and relearn it all. I used to know how to calculate the volumes of ships odd shaped tanks and how much ballast to shift to one side of the ship to counteract the loading of heavy lifts on the other. All forgotten now though.

Being from '61 I'm bilingual but don't have much need to drop into Zoll mode.
Still weigh in stones though. Fuel consumption lt per 100km.

I guess at schools these days it's all metric.
But I admire the youngsters who start work and have to use a measuring system so confused with imperial.

I am glad the fractions went
It makes me laugh when car dealers quote MPG ... like it means something to a chap who has never seen a gallon or walked a mile.

Vintage 1960.
So brought up on Pounds, Shillings, and Pence, Stones, Pounds, and Ounces, Gallons and Pints (not to mention quarts) PSi. My dad taught me about Rods, Poles, Chains.
I work in a School Physics dept, so days spent using Kg, Metres, Litres, Bar. etc but at night I revert to my roots...
If anyone catches me quoting Km/gallon ??? please have me shot.

T

My first proper job was working in a commercial laboratory and some of the measures were in grains and drams. I still think in some imperial units. 25 thou is a handy spark plug gap and the thickness of my thumb nail (ish). A gallon of beer is a blimmin good night out. I've been about 12 stone all my adult life (well, nearly all of it). I'm better at visualising length and distance in inches, feet, yards and miles. Speed will always be MPH as it's so much more satisfying than KPH.

I worked at BAe building aircraft Harriers were imperial Hawks were metric. Went in to motor racing, worked in the USA they use both on the same car. What a nightmare

Born in 1951 so old style was a natural for me.last job before I retired was a commissioning engineer on vending machines.all ingredients were measured in grammes and water in cubic centimeters . Temperatures in metric degrees..now I am retired in have reverted to my roots.

Being hatched in '74 my schooling was in metric but my dad being an steeplejack, working on all the old school stuff, cranes in what was at the time a dying working docklands he taught me "proper" measurements and tooling, even now he teaches his apprentices, all with university degrees the difference between the "French crap" and real stuff. So much stuff in his world is still Imperial, cranes and equipment designed 100 or so years ago, even when rebuilt or replaced was just copied and not updated to new fittings.

Same age, also mix imp and metric. I'm good at conversion factors.

1949 vintage here, and now work almost entirely in metric, so much simpler than imperial, although if necessary I can go old school but can`t see the point.
About time this country came out of the past