Nautical mile favour of the international nautical mile in 1954. The Imperial nautical mile, often called an Admiralty mile, or more correctly, an Admiralty measured mile, was defined by its relation to the Admiralty knot, 6,080 imperial feet per hour, so 1 imperial nautical mile is about 1,853.181 metres. It was abandoned in 1970 and, legally, references to the obsolete unit are now converted to 1,853 metres. Despite the existence of precise modern definitions, in the early 21st century the old definitions are still in use. The Royal Yachting Association says in its manual for day skippers: "1 (minute) of Latitude =
Mercator 1569 world map that OE=OD, here approximately 54°. This is a measure of the rhumb line distance between the points on the sphere corresponding to A and B on the spherical Earth. Since each degree on the equator corresponds to 60 nautical miles the sailing distance is 3240 nautical miles for this example. If B is in the second quadrant with respect to A then the upper rose is used and if B is west of A then the longitude separation is simply reversed. Mercator also gives a refined method which is useful for small azimuths. The above method is explained in Legend