The laws of distance, and hence speed, are slightly different on the ocean than on land. Mariners also use their own vocabulary when measuring the two. To begin, a mile on the ocean — called a ...

Here on land, the speed of a vehicle is recorded in either miles per hour or kilometers per hour. In either case, determining how fast you're moving on land is fairly simple because you can see ...

How fast you’re going while out floating on the big blue can be notoriously tricky to judge if you’re just eyeballing it. One method used to get around this issue was introduced in the sixteenth ...

Mariners used to toss a wooden log overboard, and while its line spooled out, they would count each of the knots that passed through their hands. After 28 seconds, they recorded their boat’s speed in ...

This video explains the history and practical reasons behind using knots at sea, and why this traditional unit remains useful ...