Pacific Vortex: Naval Appropriations Committee and more

pg 10

This is indeed Dirk Pitt...whose father happens to be Senator George Pitt of California, Chairman of the Naval Appropriations Committee.

This committee should more appropriately have been called a Subcommittee.

When first constituted, the Committee on Appropriations in the Senate had 13 sub-committees:

Agriculture
Army
Deficiencies
Diplomatic and consular
District of Columbia
Fortification
Indian
Legislative
Military Academy
Navy
Pensions
Post Office
Sundry Civil

Now - there is only a Military Subcommittee - not one devoted solely to Naval Appropriations.

"Okay, Pitt, it's your quarter."

When Pacific Vortex was first published, in 1982, there were still public telephone booths, and a phone call cost a quarter. Today, in 2011, if you can find a public phone, that works, a call would cost you 50 cents.

"Shortly thereafter, with the seabed only 10 fathoms beneath our keel..."

10 fathoms = 60 feet.

A fathom (abbreviation: ftm) is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems, used especially for measuring the depth of water.

There are 2 yards (6 feet) in an imperial or U.S. fathom.

Originally based on the distance between the fingertips of a man's outstretched arms, the size of a fathom has varied slightly depending on whether it was defined as a thousandth of an (Admiralty) nautical mile or as a multiple of the imperial yard. Formerly, the term was used for any of several units of length varying around 5–5+1⁄2 feet (1.5–1.7 m).

The name derives from the Old English word fæðm meaning embracing arms or a pair of outstretched arms. In Middle English it was fathme. A cable length, based on the length of a ship's cable, has been variously reckoned as equal to 100 or 120 fathoms. At one time, a quarter meant a fourth of a fathom.

In 1959 the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom defined the length of the international yard to be exactly 0.9144 metre. With the adoption of the metric SI system the use of fathoms declined.

Water depthMost modern nautical charts indicate depth in metres. However, the U.S. Hydrographic Office uses feet and fathoms. A nautical chart will always explicitly indicate the units of depth used.

To measure the depth of shallow waters, boatmen used a sounding line containing fathom points, some marked and others in between, called deeps, unmarked but estimated by the user. Water near the coast and not too deep to be fathomed by a hand sounding line was referred to as in soundings or on soundings. The area offshore beyond the 100 fathom line, too deep to be fathomed by a hand sounding line, was referred to as offsoundings or out of soundings. A deep-sea lead, the heaviest of sounding leads, was used in water exceeding 100 fathoms in depth.

This technique has been superseded by sonic depth finders for measuring mechanically the depth of water beneath a ship, one version of which is the Fathometer (trademark). The record made by such a device is a fathogram. A fathom line or fathom curve, a usually sinuous line on a nautical chart, joins all points having the same depth of water, thereby indicating the contour of the ocean floor

Burial
It is customary, when burying the dead, to inter the corpse at a fathom's depth, or "six feet under". A burial at sea (where the body is weighted to force it to the bottom) requires a minimum of six fathoms of water. This is the origin of the phrase "to deep six" as meaning to discard, or dispose of.