[bobetter]

Fair enough.
However, I have some recent Admiralty Sailing Directions and the Cruising Association Handbook which both use cables.
We were talking about Europe here, not the Caribbean.
Any coastguard, for example, around here would know what you meant by cables. It is after all just decimal miles.

Yes, I have been doing some poking around the last day or so and have seen the UK Sailing Directions referencing "Cables". Dunno if the Coasties over on this side of the Pond would understand, but I feel sure that your guys would be able to deal with "Yards" or "Meters". In this case the lowest common denominator would seem to be yards/meters in terms of universal understanding. I also discovered that the IHO uses meters as the accuracy metric for horizontal dimensions.

Yes, some of this is due to the change from paper to electronic.
However, I really do hope everyone still carries paper charts as well!
And uses them.

Yeah, and as we all know, change is hard and takes time. I, too, always use paper one of many other means of navigation. As I'm sure you are aware, tho, there are instances where paper is no longer required if your systems meet very stringent requirements. As a matter of fact, I believe there are a number of US Naval (and Royal Navy too, I believe) vessels recently commissioned that are certified "paperless". That is the future.

PS, I've still got some old charts marked in fathoms for depth.
Still valid as the land hasn't moved.

as do I, but I use ENCs and when overlaying a raster chart on top of a cel, one can query the vector underneath and see feet or meters.