Metric vs Imperial poll

[Polarity]

This should be interesting!

For our world wide group boat design... pick a standard...

Paul

[Polarity]

1 week running time.

This by request at this thread:

http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthr...=&threadid=536

Me .. option 2.

Paul

[ErikG]

I voted metric with the normal twist.
My main reason for choosing metric over imperial is that I'm not even close to being fluentin the use of the imperial system.

ErikG

[Jimboat]

I vote Imperial. While metric was supposed to 'take over' worldwide starting in 1970's, it never happened. Many more designers - and more importantly the builders - use imperial units. Also, most everyone is comfortable 'converting' from metric to imperial, but less have the tools or are comfortable converting the other way.

/Jimboat
http://www.aeromarineresearch.com

[duluthboats]

This is a good site to convert almost everything.

http://www.onlineconversion.com/

The one above wouldn't work for me today. I also like this site.

http://www.matweb.com/conversion.htm

Gary

[JORGE LANG]

European builders should keep this in mind when they build boats that will call U.S. their home ports. I constantly see boat owners looking for metric exhaust hose and the look on their face when it's something that I don't have in stock. Or a system that is built to metric size tubing and having to adapt the system to use hose available in the states. I would like to get other's opinion.

[Polarity]

...excuse me while I get on my soapbox !

As an engineer on big yachts and now a supplier of parts I would like to propose that all nominal sizes should be banned!

Metric /imperial conversions are bad enough but when 2"/50mm pipe:

a) is different sizes in Europe and the USA (and therefore on european and US products)

b) contains not a single measurement that is either 2" or 50mm

c) 2" is not 50mm anyway!

"Ha" I hear you cry, all you need is decent set of conversion tables... right - now try finding them. Then try explaining the above 3 things to the customer who is sure he wants a 1 1/2" pipe/valve/hose - because ... he measured it...

If people are truly incapable of measuring the ID or OD of something then at least let's call the sizes small, medium, large and larger or even Abdul, Bob, Charlie and Dehlila for all I care. Just NOT anything supposedly relating to graduations on a measuring device.
If we must have this system at least the manufacturers should be good enough to write the size and the system on the bloody part. After all if it says 2" how are we suppose to know if thats 2" USA or 2" European ... MEASURE IT???? (b above!)

Ok I'll get down now, before I fall off!

Paul

[Willallison]

Here Here!!

[8knots]

Sorry guys I am a rock head and will allways use imperial even if the rest of the world does convert to the dark side! Just to stubborn to learn to use it in a second nature. I have to deal with it when I do sign proposals for (British petroleum) luckily my software converts the jibberish to Real measurements like rods and furlongs! come on guys take it lite! 8Kts

[Mike D]

I totally agree with the sentiments expressed here that we should all stay with the good old pounds – feet system instead of that silly metric system.

Give me a 2” pipe every time and keep your 50 mm thing! Just look at our 2” pipe, nice round numbers - oops that’s 2” Nominal and they’re all 2.375” OD with a wall thickness from 0.154” to 0.436” Good grief, the now standard metric sizes conform to DIN and most pipes are identical to ours!

OK, but our engines are better. GADZOOKS, they’re metric now too. Golly, toothpaste tubes metric.

But our general measurements are much more natural and easy to apply, just a second while I measure and write down a waterline half-breadth ……..three feet four and three sixteenths (he said) and 3’ 4 3/16” (he wrote). Sorry, I’m back that’s straightforward enough now to convert it to decimals for calculations = 3.348958333, times 42.125 times 43.145833 = 6,086.793 cubic feet divided by 36 = 169.078 long tons times 2240 = 378,734.72 pounds. I think that should be good enough.

Damn these metric measures one point three seven five metres = 1.375 times 15.2 times 27.85 = 582.065 cubic metres = 582.065 tonnes of fresh water = 582,065 kilos. What a nuisance, cumbersome!



But has anyone a scale like this one?

I laughed at the adoption of the metric nautical mile, the US adopted it 50 years ago and have been publishing charts using the International Nautical Mile for years. In practical terms it's no different to the old UK nm, but the advantage is you're going faster! Now 25.02 knots versus 25. There's a downside of course to all of this. Like the guy said, "Now I have to drive 250 km to see my girl friend but it was only 150 m yesterday."

My only difficulty with the metric system is that now I must 2.54 cm my car back into the drive. When I decide to just proceed and damn them all I find that "In for 2.4 cents, in for 0.454 kilos" just doesn't hack it.

Try a little experiment with your wife/girl-friend/mother/sister/daughter. In the supermarket ask her what size of packet she is buying, or can or toothpaste and why she rarely buys apples by the pound - she'll swear she does but she buys whatever they weigh and pays per pound, she probably picks 4 or 5 anyway. My wife buys big, medium or little ones.

So the 2" inch pipe is really 2.375 OD or 60.325 mm

Bite the bullet, go metric
Michael

[Polarity]

A year or so back I did a yacht race Barcelone/Ibiza, when the fog came down coming back into Barcelona and they had to use something other than the GPS to navigate they asked me to help ... thats when I discovered they had ... METRIC CHARTS.... aaarrrrggghh! - confused ? completely!

I love the metric system .. but there is a limit!

Paul

[Polarity]

PS Honest,
Michael, 2" pipe might be 2.375 OD or 60.325 mm where you come from but 2" European pipe will be a different size - and not 2" either!

Paul

[Mike D]

Paul

I don't know what size UK, Aus, NZ, Spain and a few other places use but the US and Canada work with the US standards and the 2" Nominal pipe is as I described it.

About 25 years ago the North Sea oil boom started and it was really driven by Americans who had the experience in offshore drilling. When their design engineers began to try and use European standards they threw them out because there were so many it would have created havoc in trying to build modules in different places. (There was also the usual crap that ABS and USCG MODU regs weren't good enough for the Europeans who all began to write their own standards anyway.)

So they began to use the normal API and ANSI standards common on rigs. This accelerated moves in European yards to standardise as there was no such thing as a metric standard in the same way that there was no inch standard.

(The last offshore project I worked on was a re-construction of a drilling rig into a production rig. So here was a rig with an original basic design from the US, detail design done in Singapore, built in Italy. The production system and mods to the structure etc were engineered in the UK, detailed by my yard, with design approvals in Italy, UK, Canada, US and South America. And you're complaining about metric charts )

For the same reason that MacDonalds sells burgers in Paris and Coke in Seville the US piping began to make inroads into Europe. The best European Standards group was the German DIN which grouped the US standards into three lots depending on the scope and availability of associated fittings. So the groups were

• Full range of fittings for a wide range of pipes
• Medium range
• Small range

This became the new DIN standard and the sizes were the US standards simply converted into mm. For some reason I could never 1.8288m they changed a few, I think out of all the US sizes up to 10" Nominal they used a different 6" and 8" but I am not sure now.

I must admit that I don't know what was adopted throughout Europe but I know yards in France, Germany, Holland and Norway that were using the DIN standards. Machine manufacturers were also trying to standardise on the pipe connection fittings.

This is common on ships but I confess I do not know what happens on boats where tubes are the norm I suppose, not the bigger and heavier pipes.

So you be careful! If you call in at the local marina in the Arctic and ask the Inuit repair boss if he can fix a Spanish standard doo-hickey I think he'll tell you ........................... (fill in the blanks)

What's wrong with Spanish charts being metric, by the way. Did you mistake a rock for a fish perhaps and forgot that a miss is as good as 1.609344 km?

Happy daze
Michael

[Jorgoz]

Option 2

Over here everything is metric, except when i go out to buy wood .

George

[Mike H]

If you have imperial! why not have Experial?