NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: DR thread from Nov-Dec '04
From: Bill B
Date: 2005 Jan 19, 19:03 -0500
From: Bill B
Date: 2005 Jan 19, 19:03 -0500
Jared I retract the statement below. "I have no argument for or against the proper use of the word "fetch" in the text I read, just the above observations. If the author of the text misused it, I am guilty only of propagating that error ;-) As it can be a fairly local event, took it to mean the unobstructed distance of the wind over the water before it reached the vessel in the case of wind-driven currents. I cannot argue with a word that is what it is by definition. My apologies for attempting to place my misunderstanding in the lap of the author. Bill > <> > > I've never seen it used that way. From my cheap dictionary: > "4.a. The distance over which a wind blows. b. The distance traveled by > waves with no obstruction." > > Which agrees with the way I've always heard it, i.e. a west wind, perhaps > better called a easterly wind , blowing from Japan toward California > unobstructed, from the California local sailors' perspective, would cause > waves and current to build with a four thousand mile fetch. That is, the > wind had been acting on the water for four thousand miles. > > The longer the wind has been blowing, and the longer the fetch is, the > stronger the impact on the water will be. > > (Four thousand being a terribly rough number, don't use it for > navigation. )