NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Time Zone Designations
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2017 Jan 3, 22:27 -0500
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2017 Jan 3, 22:27 -0500
Lu
I had an multi-day stay aboard a US Navy frigate as it sailed thru ~4 time zones. The frigate was underway, escorting a US carrier. The crew in the CIC compartment I was in had 6 on-6 off, around the clock. That is, they worked for 6 hours and were off for 6 hours, all day, every day. At no time did the clock shift to accommodate the new time zone. Superfluous. Completely irrelevant. Time was a measure of duration of on/off time. The actual time relative to the sun didn't count for beans.
The mess deck served four meals a day, about every 6 hours apart. Lots of good food in the Navy, easy to pack on pounds.
When we arrived at port, all the crew that had shore leave, did so, independent of sleep or the clock. As a civilian, naturally I got off the frigate as well. We all got rip roaring drunk, and a glorious time was had by all.
Brad
On Jan 3, 2017 9:34 PM, "Lu Abel" <NoReply_LuAbel@fer3.com> wrote:
Here's a question for those who have served in the Navy: Are watches (the kind sailors stand, not the kind on your wrist) synchronized to local time? In other words, if I cross a time zone boundary, does some watch get to go for either an additional hour or an hour less?This also reminds me about ZT vs UT -- according to the same "rules" that makes us take sites in ZT rather than UT, hourly DRs are also supposed to be plotted in ZT. The first DR after crossing a time zone boundary is supposed to be annotated both in the previous ZT and the current one...
Stan, do you suppose that this could contribute to a nautical equivalent to jet lag?I have always supposed that changing ship time as zone time varied was a way to make sure you were properly synched with the shore when you arrived.Bob
