The Round Gotland Race ( Swedish : Gotland runt ), for sponsorship reasons referred to as ÅF Offshore Race in commercial situations, is an offshore sailing race in the Baltic Sea , arranged by the Royal Swedish Yacht Club at the turn of the month June/July each year with the starting and finishing lines in Sandhamn in the outskirts of Stockholm archipelago. The two-days regatta is the most prestigious race in the Baltic Sea and have an average of around 300 participating sailing boats.
25-536: The competition is divided into eight different classes, sailing on five different courses. The longest, 653 M , is sailed by 60-foot trimarans, the shortest 179 M , for classic boats. The overall victor is appointed in the ORC International class. For the less experienced and family sailors there is the SweLYS/SRS class, which provides the holiday sailors a taste of a real sail-race adventure. (Course Delta , see
50-568: A quarter meridian . So 10,000,000 m / 90 × 60 = 1,851.85 m ≈ 1,852 m became the metric length for a nautical mile. France made it legal for the French Navy in 1906, and many metric countries voted to sanction it for international use at the 1929 International Hydrographic Conference. Both the United States and the United Kingdom used an average arcminute—specifically,
75-583: A break in Visby (for dinner and relaxation) the boats returned next day to the finishing line in Sandhamn, but without sailing round Gotland. The course is about 200 M . The last Visby Yacht Race was arranged in 1939 when Jacob Wallenberg (1892–1980) with his 10-metre class yacht Refanut , after the victory in series of races, won the last race and was then entitled to keep the Visby Yacht Race trophy forever. It
100-406: A degree (5866 2 / 3 feet per arcminute ). In 1633, William Oughtred suggested 349,800 feet to a degree (5830 feet per arcminute). Both Gunter and Oughtred put forward the notion of dividing a degree into 100 parts, but their proposal was generally ignored by navigators. The ratio of 60 miles, or 20 leagues, to a degree of latitude remained fixed while the length of the mile
125-469: A degree is a map by Nicolaus Germanus in a 1482 edition of Ptolemy 's Geography indicating one degree of longitude at the Equator contains " milaria 60 ". An earlier manuscript map by Nicolaus Germanus in a previous edition of Geography states " unul gradul log. et latitud sub equinortiali formet stadia 500 que fanut miliaria 62 1 / 2 " ("one degree longitude and latitude under
150-571: A minute of arc of a great circle of a sphere having the same surface area as the Clarke 1866 ellipsoid . The authalic (equal area) radius of the Clarke 1866 ellipsoid is 6,370,997.2 metres (20,902,222 ft). The resulting arcminute is 1,853.2480 metres (6,080.210 ft). The United States chose five significant digits for its nautical mile, 6,080.2 feet , whereas the United Kingdom chose four significant digits for its Admiralty mile, 6,080 feet. In 1929
175-453: A test descent. Inventions or Devises , published in 1578, is one of William Bourne's more important works. This book gives many guides and instructional tools for sailors, mostly concerning interactions with other ships. The 21st device listed is the earliest known description of a ship's log and line , which he attributes to Humprey Cole , an officer of the Tower Mint . The 75th device on
200-460: Is no single internationally agreed symbol, with several symbols in use. The word mile is from the Latin phrase for a thousand paces: mille passus . Navigation at sea was done by eye until around 1500 when navigational instruments were developed and cartographers began using a coordinate system with parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude . The earliest reference of 60 miles to
225-509: The Sea. Bourne was critical of some aspects of the original and produced a manual of more practical use to the seaman. He described how to make observations of the sun and stars, using a cross-staff , and how to plot coastal features from the ship by taking bearings using triangulation. Before publishing his submarine design, William Bourne was a jurat in Gravesend, England. His name first appears in
250-625: The description was a general principle rather than a detailed plan. However, the concept of an underwater rowing boat was eventually put into action by the Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel in 1620, and Nathaniel Symons demonstrated a 'sinking boat' in 1729 using the expanding and contracting volume of the boat to submerge. The submarine was the subject of a modern-day recreation on season 3 of " The Re-Inventors " TV show, episode "Bourne Submarine". The recreation had limited functionality before it sank when water pressure ruptured some membranes on
275-500: The distance along a great circle was 60 miles per degree. However, these referred to the old English mile of 5000 feet and league of 15,000 feet, relying upon Ptolemy's underestimate of the Earth's circumference . In the early seventeenth century, English geographers started to acknowledge the discrepancy between the angular measurement of a degree of latitude and the linear measurement of miles. In 1624 Edmund Gunter suggested 352,000 feet to
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#1732885040079300-475: The equator forms 500 stadia , which make 62 1 / 2 miles"). Whether a correction or convenience, the reason for the change from 62 1 / 2 to 60 miles to a degree is not explained. Eventually, the ratio of 60 miles to a degree appeared in English in a 1555 translation of Pietro Martire d'Anghiera 's Decades: "[Ptolemy] assigned likewise to every degree three score miles." By
325-474: The first charter of incorporation of Gravesend from June 5, 1562. His name appears once again as a jurat in the second charter of Gravesend, June 5, 1568. During the time of the second charter, the only records of regulations for trading in Gravesend are written in Bourne's handwriting. This would imply that he held an office such as clerk of the market. He also worked as an innkeeper during this time, one of fourteen in
350-547: The international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as exactly 1,852 metres (which is 6,076.12 ft). The United States did not adopt the international nautical mile until 1954. Britain adopted it in 1970, but legal references to the obsolete unit are now converted to 1,853 metres (which is 6,079.40 ft). The metre
375-625: The late 16th century English geographers and navigators knew that the ratio of distances at sea to degrees was constant along any great circle (such as the equator , or any meridian), assuming that Earth was a sphere. In 1574, William Bourne stated in A Regiment for the Sea the "rule to raise a degree" practised by navigators: "But as I take it, we in England should allowe 60 myles to one degrée: that is, after 3 miles to one of our Englishe leagues, wherefore 20 of oure English leagues shoulde answere to one degrée." Likewise, Robert Hues wrote in 1594 that
400-463: The list is a description of a night signal or early semaphore system to be used between people on distant ships who had previously decided on a code consisting of a series of lights and fashion of standing. The 110th entry is what seems to be a type of telescope . The device was said to have been employed by mathematician and surveyor Leonard Digges and Bourne was asked to investigate it by Queen Elizabeth I 's chief advisor Lord Burghley . Bourne's
425-492: The location. William Bourne (mathematician) William Bourne (c. 1535–1582) was an English mathematician, innkeeper and former Royal Navy gunner who presented the first design for a navigable submarine and wrote important navigational manuals. He is often called William Bourne of Gravesend . In 1574, he produced a popular version of the Martín Cortés de Albacar 's Arte de Navegar , entitled A Regiment for
450-435: The map at the top of this article.) Remark: The straight distance between Revengegrundet east of Sandhamn and Visby (course 193°) is almost exactly 100 M . Gotland Round Race has its roots in a yacht race between Sandhamn and Visby in the early 1920s, called Visby Yacht Race . It was a popular race between large type metre yachts , arranged by Royal Swedish Yacht Club . The course started in Sandhamn down to Visby. After
475-430: The measurement based on this ( 40,075.017 km / 360 × 60 = 1,855.3 metres) is known as the geographical mile . Using the definition 1 / 60 of a degree of latitude on Mars , a Martian nautical mile equals to 983 m (1,075 yd). This is potentially useful for celestial navigation on a human mission to the planet , both as a shorthand and a quick way to roughly determine
500-403: The poles and 1,843 metres at the Equator. France and other metric countries state that in principle a nautical mile is an arcminute of a meridian at a latitude of 45°, but that is a modern justification for a more mundane calculation that was developed a century earlier. By the mid-19th century, France had defined a nautical mile via the original 1791 definition of the metre , one ten-millionth of
525-426: The town of Gravesend. His design, detailed in his book Inventions or Devises published in 1578, was one of the first recorded plans for an underwater navigation vehicle. He designed an enclosed craft capable of submerging by decreasing the overall volume (rather than flooding chambers as in modern submarines), and being rowed underwater. Bourne described a ship with a wooden frame covered in waterproofed leather, but
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#1732885040079550-436: Was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( 1 / 60 of a degree) of latitude at the equator, so that Earth's polar circumference is very near to 21,600 nautical miles (that is 60 minutes × 360 degrees). Today the international nautical mile is defined as 1,852 metres (about 6,076 ft; 1.151 mi). The derived unit of speed is the knot , one nautical mile per hour. There
575-431: Was not until 1937 that the course for the first time covered a trip around Gotland. The course was 250 M and the yachts sailed round Gotland counter clockwise (today the race is clockwise), including an extension round a checkpoint north of Öland . Nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation , and for the definition of territorial waters . Historically, it
600-487: Was originally defined as 1 ⁄ 10,000,000 of the length of the meridian arc from the North pole to the equator (1% of a centesimal degree of latitude), thus one kilometre of distance corresponds to one centigrad (also known as centesimal arc minute) of latitude. The Earth's circumference is therefore approximately 40,000 km. The equatorial circumference is slightly longer than the polar circumference –
625-449: Was revised with better estimates of the earth’s circumference. In 1637, Robert Norwood proposed a new measurement of 6120 feet for an arcminute of latitude, which was within 44 feet of the currently accepted value for a nautical mile. Since the Earth is not a perfect sphere but is an oblate spheroid with slightly flattened poles, a minute of latitude is not constant, but about 1,862 metres at
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