> I just think of a narrow boat / narrow lock as 22m x 2m - as > close as you can visualize ;-)
Let me see now, that'd be about 71 and a half feet by 6 foot 6 then. *Now* I can visualise it :-) Not very accurate though. 21m x 2.1m would be closer to 70' x 7' but accurately it's 21.336m x 2.1336 and most modern boats are 6'10 not 7' which would be 2.0828m - both 7' and 6'10 when rounded to one decimal place result in an identical metric measurement which is not very useful! Both metric and imperial measurement systems have their advantages and disadvantages. As somebody who served his engineering apprenticeship in the late 70's at a firm who'd gone metric on new drawings a year or two earlier but still had thousands of in-use older drawings in imperial, I'm totally bilingual and will happilly work in whichever system seems to suit the job at hand. I find metric measurement to be easier when working to a high degree of accuracy but find I have a tendency to revert to feet and inches for rough work. It mattered not a jot whether we went metric or Europe went imperial. What mattered is that a standard system of measurement was in use throughout the Western world. The Americans are foolish in not going metric IMO. Actually, their imperial measurements are bl**dy crazy too! I've never understood why the US insisted on having pints, gallons, miles etc. that were similar but different to the established imperial measures. What I do think is kind've stupid is clinging on to quantities etc. in imperial measures but stating them in metric units - eg; 2.272 litres of milk ie; 4 pints! (Although actually it's 3.9982 pints to be exact ... Rounded to four decimal places before my brother chips in ... which is weird if you ask me, why isn't it 2.273 litres which is near enough exact?????). Why not just sell it in 2 litre bottles? Actually they do and in my recycling bin right now is 3 2.272l bottles of milk and 2 2 litre bottles - crackers! To get back somewhere near on-topic (for a change) there is one area where I do think it makes no sense at all to try and go metric and that is in heritage situations dealing with structures, buildings and so on that were built in feet and inches. You either end up dealing with memorable (not) measurements down to the millimetre for accuracy or horribly inaccurate approximations. If something was built 70 foot long by 7 foot wide then it's 70'x7' not 21m x 2.1m or it's 21336mm x 21336mm :-) And with that, I shall go get on with laying my new lawn (measured in metres) or, if the ground is too damp to work on, making the gates for my new fruit cage (measured in feet and inches!) Bru (1790.7mm tall ... 6 foot 10 and a half in old money)
