I think we are talking a bit past one another. You're talking about navigation, which has little or nothing to do with time zones. After all, a time zone is roughly 15 degrees across! The use of GMT began of course with the advent of the chronometer, which however was of slow adoption because the things were dreadfully expensive. Cook only had one on his second voyage, not his first. By century's end the RN and well-funded EIC had them in most all ships, but a lot of single-ship owners made do without until industrial production made them available for less than a lord's annual income. Still, calculation of longitude had nothing to do with broad one-hour zones, which would hardly have been of any use: what was necessary was the time difference from Greenwich measured to the second, and the other figure in that sum was local time, still determined by the time of local apparent noon. It could be said that the whole point of chronometric navigation was keeping the time standard locked to a London suburb and not changing it, ever; it used to be a capital offense in the RN to tamper with the chronometer. Where time zones did, slowly, come to obtain at sea was in the regulation of the common day: the ship's workday, the timing of watches and so on. For ages the maritime day began at local solar noon, the only time reference a ship at sea had, and was re-set daily. It was only much later, and certainly I think after the mid-19th century, that ships started re-setting their working clocks in 1-hour increments based on crossing an invisible line. But this was a function of sailors adopting rather late an innovation created by the railroads.
I agree, GMT was kept for navigation, not ship’s time. Was the Executive Officer on two different ships and taught Celestial Navigation for over 4 years at the Officers Candidate School.. in modern times, underway, anytime we lost an hour, I always changed the clocks at Noon - more ship’s work that way, of course when we gained an hour , the clocks were adjusted at Midnight. Most time on ships in the early days was maintained by a sand clock that ran through in 30 minutes - the passing of the hours was based on Bells with the first half hour being 1 bell the 4th hour (8th half hour) being 8 bells which was the length of a watch. In the sailing ships days, even with chronometers, the bells held sway to keep the watch rotation consistent. With 4 on 4 off (port and Starboard watches ) time was really immaterial. You were tired all the time. Best was 4 and 8 watch rotation - then you had 8 hours between your 4 hour watches. On some cruises we didn’t adjust time until about to enter port, then we might have a couple hours to adjust to match what the land lubbers were keeping. but we are still way off topic ….
It's what this subforum is here for. ____________________________________ We were fortunate enough to be able to maintain a three-section watchbill almost all the time. Even then, watches were on top of the dawn-to-dusk workday. Port-and-starboard watches really were awful.
Worst I had was 1 in 3 when we were in the ice in Antarctica, only 3 of use were qualified OODs for Ice operations, the Captain trusted me and put me on the Midwatches since that is when we moved the ship to the next scientific station… and of course I was the 1st LT and had to supervise all small boat and Helo operations which were run all day from 0530 until 2000 since the sun never set… so I had about 3 hours a day of downtime —- this when on for about 3 weeks till the new junior officers got ice qualified.
Usually we would dog the watches, but during that period, I was the most experienced ice qualified OOD, and the Captain wanted me on the Mids when we moved the ship, I guess he felt he could sleep. . After we got a few others quailed and the other two gained more experience, I was taken off watches for a few days as a reward. I was young and having the time of my life playing in the Antarctic following the footsteps of Shackleton, Byrd and the other early explorers …
It was a once in a lifetime experience -- had other voyages to the Arctic afterwards - but being able to walk around McMurdo station - see the Ross Ice shelf - watch the penguins, sea lions and killer whales in their natural habitat - priceless -- and they paid me to boot!!
I know .. ironic, but was some of the best ship handling training around… and then when actually breaking ice only 3 engine and rudder commands - all ahead full, all stop, all back full - left full rudder, rudder amidships, Right full rudder… backing and ramming - great fun with a ship.
