Knots

[Seeker]

Ever heard about how sailors used to use knots to measure the distance they've gone? Well, I think it's about time we had an accurate way to measure distance at sea. We should be able to make rope, then use the knots to measure the distance. For example:
1318-2: First knot
1318-6: Second Knot
1319-1: Third Knot

And so on and so forth, at the moment we are all guessing where we are going based on direction and weight. But we can't accurately say "go 35% for a day and then turn 90%" Because weight always affects your speed. With knots I can accurately use maths to take short cuts.

[Nick]

Explain this more please, in terms of how it works in real life?

[Chris Johnson]

Basically sailors trail a rope attached to a bouy or log behind them as a boat moves forward . The rope would have knots at known intervals which they'd count. This gave them an idea of distance travelled. Couple that with a means to measure time and you get a good estimate of the speed of your vessel. This also why boats speed is meausred in knots and not miles per hour.

[Nick]

Basically sailors trail a rope attached to a bouy or log behind them as a boat moves forward . The rope would have knots at known intervals which they'd count. This gave them an idea of distance travelled. Couple that with a means to measure time and you get a good estimate of the speed of your vessel. This also why boats speed is meausred in knots and not miles per hour.

Well with no bouys or basically any other method of measuring distance over open water, apart from trigonometry with lighthouses, isn't this suggestion rather irrelevant?

[Chris Johnson]

Basically sailors trail a rope attached to a bouy or log behind them as a boat moves forward . The rope would have knots at known intervals which they'd count. This gave them an idea of distance travelled. Couple that with a means to measure time and you get a good estimate of the speed of your vessel. This also why boats speed is meausred in knots and not miles per hour.

Well with no bouys or basically any other method of measuring distance over open water, apart from trigonometry with lighthouses, isn't this suggestion rather irrelevant?

No ,for those very reasons, it's extremely relevant as a suggestion . The suggestion is an implementation of means to measure absolute distance whilst travelling at sea .

IRL you only need a short time (2 or 3 minutes) and a knotted rope tied to a small floating object such as a float or log as the anchor point to calculate distance travelled . It doesn't require any fixed points or anchored bouys. Its a highly accurate method used for centuries , Currents,tides and winds can effect marginly effect measurements but we don't have those in Cantr either ....

[Racetyme]

Implement this now, one of my characters just spent some back breaking time doing trig to fine a path to another island that is more straight, and it is probably wrong. I have to go test that out soon.

[Seeker]

Implement this now, one of my characters just spent some back breaking time doing trig to fine a path to another island that is more straight, and it is probably wrong. I have to go test that out soon.

My point exactly, we don't have the means to simply work out how far we've gone seeing as we need to consider our wieght and speed of vessal as well.

[Nick]

Of course if the appropriate department would post that information on the wiki you could find out for yourself.

[Seeker]

I would rather this idea, it would definately increase the trade between large continents since we can now use proper directions.