Metrication and the Nautical Mile

Extract

Although Admiral Ritchie does not agree, I still think that some significance does attach to the difference between the British Standard Nautical Mile and the International Mile. It is a matter of definition and is of vital importance to the young student beginning to study navigation. Unless basic definitions are clear and unambiguous continual difficulty arises which obscures practical considerations of the reliability of measurements that are made. Moreover, it is extremely unfortunate that the length of a minute of arc of a meridian was ever given the label ‘mile’—a standard of measurement of distance, or that anyone should ever have suggested measuring distance with a unit of variable length. The confusion that has been caused in the minds of student navigators over the years is enormous and the opportunity now exists for this source of confusion to be removed.