A cable length or cable's length is a nautical unit of measure equal to one tenth of a nautical mile or 100 fathoms, or sometimes 120 fathoms. The unit is named after the length of a ship's anchor cable in the age of sail. The definition varies:
- International: 1⁄10 nautical mile, or 185.2 m
- Imperial (Admiralty): 1⁄10 Admiralty mile, or 608 ft (185.32 m), about 101 fathoms
- The traditional British fathom varied from 5½ feet to 7 feet in the Merchant Navy.
- U.S. customary (US Navy): 120 fathoms (720 feet, 219.456 m)
Famous quotes containing the words cable and/or length:
“To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.”
—Douglass Cross (b. 1920)
“The man who, from the beginning of his life, has been bathed at length in the soft atmosphere of a woman, in the smell of her hands, of her bosom, of her knees, of her hair, of her supple and floating clothes, ... has contracted from this contact a tender skin and a distinct accent, a kind of androgyny without which the harshest and most masculine genius remains, as far as perfection in art is concerned, an incomplete being.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)