Quote
Question (from "New Scientist")
In the novel Moby Dick, the wooden whaling ship meets a typhoon south-east
of Japan and is subjected to thunder, lightning and displays of St Elmo's
fire. Subsequently, the magnetism of the ship's compass needle is discovered
to be reversed. The author, Herman Melville, maintains that such compass
reversals "have in more than one case occurred to ships in violent storms",
and sometimes when the rigging has been struck by lightning the magnetism in
a compass needle may be totally lost. Is this fact or fiction, and if it is
true how does it occur?
Alan Sloan, Buxton, Derbyshire, UK
Answers
Herman Melville's assertion is entirely plausible. Lightning involves very
high currents with high associated magnetic fields. They remagnetise exposed
outcrops of high-coercivity (high resistance to the effect of an applied
magnetic field) rocks with ease. Currents exceeding 10,000 amperes have been
deduced from rock magnetisations. The associated magnetic fields could
easily demagnetise or reversely magnetise a compass needle.
Alan Reid, Leeds, UK
Unquote
Redundancy is always a good thing...
Cheers
Bent Tolstrup
Assuming spherical earth, we all know that 1 minute of latitude is equal to
1 nautical mile.
At what latitude is 1 minute of LONGITUDE:
(easy one) equal to 1 nautical mile
(hard one) equal to 1 STATUTE mile
-- Jim
Jim & Rita Ague
M/V Derreen, Monk 36
at Waterside, Norfolk, VA
ague@usa.net
At 11:23 AM 11/1/04 -0500, you wrote:
Assuming spherical earth, we all know that 1 minute of latitude is equal to
1 nautical mile.
At what latitude is 1 minute of LONGITUDE:
(easy one) equal to 1 nautical mile
(hard one) equal to 1 STATUTE mile
I don't have Bowditch in front of me.
At an absolute level of precision you can't assume a spherical earth. After
all it ain't so.
One minute of latitude equals one nautical mile. But the tricky part is how
many feet is that. It so happens that as the precision of our measurements
has improved the actual number has changed by a few feet, in some cases by
a few inches. As I recall the number of feet is calculated by the size of
the earth using the latitude and is directly related to the measurement as
it exists and is not necessarily static.
Whereas the statue mile is static.
Fortunately, the level of precision involved is not necessary for ordinary
mariners, or we would be in bi_G trouble.
The details for all this used to be, but may not be in the present version
of Bowditch.
Mike
Capt. Mike Maurice
Tualatin(Portland), Oregon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Ague" jim.ague@att.net
Assuming spherical earth, we all know that 1 minute of latitude is equal
to
1 nautical mile.
At what latitude is 1 minute of LONGITUDE:
(easy one) equal to 1 nautical mile
(hard one) equal to 1 STATUTE mile
A -- Lat 0
B -- approx Lat 12
Monday, November 1, 2004, 8:23:42 AM, Jim wrote:
JA> Assuming spherical earth, we all know that 1 minute of latitude is equal to
JA> 1 nautical mile.
JA> At what latitude is 1 minute of LONGITUDE:
JA> (easy one) equal to 1 nautical mile
at the equator
JA> (hard one) equal to 1 STATUTE mile
The length of a minute of longitude at any latitude is equal to the cosine of the latitude.
5280/6076 = 0.87 The angle whose cosine is 0.87 is 29.6.
--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lien Hwa 28 (AKA Polaris 30) "Sea Spray"
GPS and NMEA info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter
Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca
I came up with the equator and approximately 30 degrees north and south
latitude.
Capatin Todd Mains
Portland, OR
-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of Jim Ague
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 8:24 AM
To: Vianaut@tdc-broadband.dk; Trawler World List
Subject: T&T: RE: Which Way, Captain?
Assuming spherical earth, we all know that 1 minute of latitude is equal to
1 nautical mile.
At what latitude is 1 minute of LONGITUDE:
(easy one) equal to 1 nautical mile
(hard one) equal to 1 STATUTE mile
-- Jim
Is there a way to calculate how many BTUs of air conditioning you need for a
boat in Florida. I would suspect there is a web site calculator somewhere,
but I'll be darned if I can find it.
Alan
Tampa
Flagship Marine has some good formulas here
http://flagshipmarine.com/sizeboat.html
Ken Tischler
Microship
Defever 49 PH
-----Original Message-----
From: trawlers-and-trawlering-bounces@lists.samurai.com
[mailto:trawlers-and-trawlering-bounces@lists.samurai.com] On Behalf Of Alan
Wagner
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 10:06 PM
To: trawlers-and-trawlering@lists.samurai.com
Subject: T&T: Air Conditioning
Is there a way to calculate how many BTUs of air conditioning you need for a
boat in Florida. I would suspect there is a web site calculator somewhere,
but I'll be darned if I can find it.
Alan
Tampa
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