Why Boats and Ships Measure Their Speed on the Water in Knots

Simon Whistler explains why boats and ships measure their speed on the water in knots and how the unit is measured in an episode of Today I Found Out.

How fast you’re going while out floating on the big blue can be notoriously tricky to judge if you’re just eyeballing it. One method used to get around this issue was introduced in the sixteenth century using a “chip log” or “log-line.”