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A fathom is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems equal to 6 feet (1.8288 m), used especially for measuring the depth of water. [1] The fathom is neither an international standard (SI) unit, nor an internationally accepted non-SI unit.
The fathometer is an echo sounding system for measurement of water depth. A fathometer will display water depth and can make an automatic permanent record of measurements. Since both fathometers and fishfinders work the same way, and use similar frequencies and can detect both the bottom and fish, the instruments have merged. [2]
Since a historical pre-SI unit of water depth was the fathom, an instrument used for determining water depth is sometimes called a fathometer. Most charted ocean depths are based on an average or standard sound speed. Where greater accuracy is required, average and even seasonal standards may be applied to ocean regions.
A sailor and a man on shore, both sounding the depth with a line. Depth sounding, often simply called sounding, is measuring the depth of a body of water.Data taken from soundings are used in bathymetry to make maps of the floor of a body of water, such as the seabed topography.
The sides of a ship. To describe a ship as "on her beam ends" may mean the vessel is literally on her side and possibly about to capsize; more often, the phrase means the vessel is listing 45 degrees or more. beam reach Sailing with the wind coming across the vessel's beam. This is normally the fastest point of sail for a fore-and-aft-rigged ...
Fathometer or fishfinder: a device to locate fish at various water depths; Echo sounding: a technique using sound pulses to measure depth; sounding line: a length of ...
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Experiments in 1659 by Robert Boyle of the Royal Society were made using a barometer underwater, and led to Boyle's law. [1] The French physicist, mathematician and inventor Denis Papin published Recuiel de diverses Pieces touchant quelques novelles Machines in 1695, where he proposed a depth gauge for a submarine. [2]