how many feet are in a fathom??
For other uses, see Fathom (disambiguation) . A fathom = 6 feet or 1.8288 metres, is a unit of length in the old imperial and the U.S. customary systems, used especially for measuring the depth of water. There are two yards (6 feet) in an imperial fathom. Originally based on the distance between 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.