Definition
One cable equals 0.1 nautical mile, that is 185.2 metres, and is the natural unit for pilotage instructions such as passing two cables off a headland. It derives historically from the length of a ship's anchor cable, and older British practice sometimes took it as 100 fathoms, about 183 metres. On charts it corresponds to one minute of latitude divided into ten parts, the subdivisions normally printed on the latitude border.
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