What are Fanthoms as unit of depth?

[MasterGoa]

For the life of me, I cannot find the value of a fanthom...

But I book I bought about Atlantic Provices shipwrecks is
90% fanthoms...

What are they and how deep is 10 fanthoms?

And what is with that groovy name

MG

 

[Cecil]

1 fathom = 6 feet.

 

[BarryNL]

1 fathom = 6 feet.

Yeah, but he was asking about fanthoms.

 

[Devil505]

must have been a misprint

 

[Benny-c]

Or 1.8288 metres.

For those of us metrically inclined.

Benny

 

[Rainer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathom

 

[nolatom]

Want some history? On the river in the old days, when they wanted to find out the depth, they threw a sounding line over the side, which had a knot or marker in it every fathom. Two fathoms was two marks or knots, or "by the mark twain", or twelve feet, which was when riverboat captains began to get concerned about depth. Sam Clemens, an early riverman, took it as his pen name.

 

[agilis]

"Full fathom five thy father lies

of his bones are corals made..."

The knotted rope measure is also the reason nautical speeds are calculated in "knots".

 

[H2Andy]

Shakespare indeed

i read somewhere that the fathom started as a land measure (the measure of spread arms), and then moved on to sea

it's funny, because in Spanish, a fathom (6 feet) is called a "braza" which means, roughly, the reach of your arms (an arm is a "brazo")

and a bit of Eliot

PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea's swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

 

[pir8]

The depth of the knowledge on this board is sometime amazing