Here in Australia I find most wind sports look at the wind and convert to Knots
Lets see what other countries measure in.
In the US our National Weather Service marine forecast is in knots. If you subscribe to something like "Ikitesurf", their wind forecasts are in miles per hour (mph), as well as most local weather forecasts. Americans still think in terms of those antiquated British Imperial Units 
.
Despite my backward use of mph I do have a nice little Kestrel 1000 wind speed meter so at least I'm not guessing all the time, regardless of units. My daughters both live overseas so we are constantly converting between metric and Imperial. Spent 35 years in semiconductor R&D,..metric is all I used, but I'm still slow to convert wind speed and temps in my head!
m/s is the official unit used in Finland. Conversion to knots is accurate enough if you multiply by two (1.94 would be more accurate), so knots works great too as long as I know which on is being used. Not a fan of mph or km/h for wind speed since I'm not used to them. Beaufort is even worse since it's not even a linear scale.
What shortcuts do you use for unit conversions?
Here's a few ideas for rough conversions:
knots -> m/s : divide by 2
m/s -> knots : multiply by 2
mph -> knots : subtract 10% (multiply by 0.9)
m/s -> km/h : multiply by 3.6 (multiply by 4 and subtract 10%) - this one is exact.
km/h -> m/s : divide by 3.6 (add 10% and divide by 4)
mph -> km/h : add half and add 10% of the mph (multiply by 1.6)
km/h -> mph : divide by two and add a quarter of the result from the division (divide by 1.6)
Select to expand quoteJuriM said..
m/s is the official unit used in Finland. Conversion to knots is accurate enough if you multiply by two (1.94 would be more accurate), so knots works great too as long as I know which on is being used. Not a fan of mph or km/h for wind speed since I'm not used to them. Beaufort is even worse since it's not even a linear scale.
What shortcuts do you use for unit conversions?
Here's a few ideas for rough conversions:
knots -> m/s : divide by 2
m/s -> knots : multiply by 2
mph -> knots : subtract 10% (multiply by 0.9)
m/s -> km/h : multiply by 3.6 (multiply by 4 and subtract 10%) - this one is exact.
km/h -> m/s : divide by 3.6 (add 10% and divide by 4)
mph -> km/h : add half and add 10% of the mph (multiply by 1.6)
km/h -> mph : divide by two and add a quarter of the result from the division (divide by 1.6)
My shortcut is to type "10 knots in km/h" into google. Boat speeds and wind is knots.
Meter per second and knots as our measurement points in the netherlands give both.
I never got the imperial system. I mean they have a land mile and the nautical one, wich one do you use on the coast and I that different from at a lake?
Although I,m 100% metric with boards I know the dimensions only in feet and inches.Weird how are brain works with that.
Select to expand quoteSmeee said..
Think we use wing size as a measure ..
"it's 4.5 weather ...."
Which brand of wing? PPC and F-one are veeery different, at least in layover. My 2.8 PPC = my 3.5 F-one, my 3.8PPC = maybe a 4.4 or 4.5 in F-one world.
I'm all over the shop ,
Boat speed MPH ( from my racing days ) but still work on LPH for fuel consumption
Wind Speed knots (Always)
Depth in fathoms ( just roughly double it to get meters)
Foil speed and distance KPH
Land size Acres & meters
Units of measure in metric but I can easily talk imperial and convert instantly . This comes from my age I suppose I was in primary school when we switched over so I learnt both. Prone & wing board measurements are all imperial , same with engine rebuilds we still talk in 1000's of an inch for a re-bore.
Select to expand quotePiros said..
I'm all over the shop ,
Boat speed MPH ( from my racing days ) but still work on LPH for fuel consumption
Wind Speed knots (Always)
Depth in fathoms ( just roughly double it to get meters)
Foil speed and distance KPH
Land size Acres & meters
Units of measure in metric but I can easily talk imperial and convert instantly . This comes from my age I suppose I was in primary school when we switched over so I learnt both. Prone & wing board measurements are all imperial , same with engine rebuilds we still talk in 1000's of an inch for a re-bore.
Agree with them.
The weirdest one is boards 5 foot @ 90 liters. Go figure, metric makes the most sense but a 1.6m board sounds wrong.
Knots for wind, body parts for height of waves. Ankle, knee, waist, chest, shoulder, head, head and a half, etc.
