Knots
It’s springtime and water is flowing quickly. Did you ever wonder just how fast those bits of debris floating down a steam are moving?
One knot is 6076.1 feet of travel in one hour. If you travel at one knot you go approximately 1.68 feet every second, or 33 ½ feet in twenty seconds.
If you paced off 10 steps at the side of a stream, timed a floating object from start to end of what you paced, and determined it took 10 seconds, the speed of the object would be 2 knots.
Or, if it took 5 seconds, the speed would have been 4 knots. (I am assuming that ten of your paces measures approximately thirty three and a half feet).
You are standing at the bottom of a set of locks and alongside a boat that is tied to the blue line in one of our Heritage Rideau Canal locks. As it waits for the lock to empty so it may continue its cruise up stream, you realize the boat is a F32 Trojan. As the sluice is opened and the water starts gushing down stream, you wonder; how fast is the water moving? A discarded paper cup floats past the cruiser’s bow. Four seconds later the cup passes the swim platform. You now know that the water from the open sluice gates was moving at about five knots. Not something you want to float in unsecured .
Speed = Distance / Time
1 knot = 33.6 feet/20sec
1 knot = 1.68 feet/sec
10 knots = 16.8 feet /sec
You are cruising along on your boat. You know the distance from your wheelhouse door to the stern is 33.6 feet. You throw a float with a looped rope off the side, and as it hits the water someone at the stern times its travel, and then retrieves it. It took two seconds to travel the 33.6 feet. 33.6 ft / 2sec = 16.8 ft/sec.
If 1.68 ft/sec = 1 knot, then 16.8/1.68 = 10 Knots; (the boats speed).
33.6 / 2 = 16.8 16.8/1.68 = 10 Knots
Your boat was traveling at 10 knots
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