Cast
Cast turns up in 2 fields: hydrography, printing. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Cast in hydrography
One lowering of a sound speed or CTD probe through the water column to measure a profile.
A single deployment of a profiling instrument from the surface to near the seabed and back, giving one sound velocity profile. Crews do a cast at the start of the day, whenever the surface sensor drifts more than a couple of metres per second from the last profile, and whenever they move into different water. Some ships drop underway probes so the vessel can keep running while it profiles.
"Surface sound speed has jumped 4 metres a second, stop at the line end and drop a cast."
Cast in printing
The process of pouring molten metal into a matrix to form a printing plate or individual type characters.
In traditional letterpress and stereotyping, operators pour an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony into a mold or papier-mache flong. Once cooled, the metal hardens into an exact replica of the original typeform, creating a solid plate for long press runs. The same basic action applies to linecasting machines, which inject molten metal against brass matrices to form solid lines of text.
"We need to cast a new stereotype for the front page because the current one is showing heavy wear on the left column."