Nautical Time

Nautical time
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Nautical time refers to the systems used

by ships on high seas to express their
local time. Nautical time keeping dates
back to the early 20th century as a
standard way to keep time at sea, although
it largely only applied to military fleets pre-
World War 2. This time-keeping method is
only used for radio communications and
to account for slight inaccuracies that
using Greenwich Standard Time (GST)
may lead to during navigation of the high
seas. Nautical time zones are split into
one hour intervals for every 15 degree
change in a ship's longitudinal coordinate.
This is typically only used for trans-
oceanic travel, as captains will often not
change the timekeeping for short
distances such as channels or inland
seas.[1]
History of nautical time

Establishment
The establishment of nautical standard

times, nautical standard time zones and
the nautical date line were recommended
by the Anglo-French Conference on Time-
keeping at Sea in 1917. The conference
recommended that the standard apply to
all ships, both military and civilian. These
zones were adopted by all major fleets
between 1920 and 1925 but not by many
independent merchant ships until World
War II.
Letter suffixes
Around 1950, a letter suffix was added to

the zone description, assigning Z to the
zero zone, and A–M (except J) to the east
and N–Y to the west (J may be assigned
to local time in non-nautical applications —
zones M and Y have the same clock time
but differ by 24 hours: a full day). These
can be vocalized using the NATO phonetic
alphabet which pronounces the letter Z as
Zulu, leading to the use of the term "Zulu
Time" for Greenwich Mean Time, or UT1
from January 1, 1972 onward.
Zone Z runs from 7°30′W to 7°30′E

longitude, while zone A runs from 7°30′E to
22°30′E longitude, etc.
These nautical letters have been added to
some time zone maps, like the World Time
Zone Map[2] published by Her Majesty's
Nautical Almanac Office (NAO), which
extended the letters by adding an asterisk
(*), a dagger (†) or a dot (•) for areas that
do not use a nautical time zone (areas that
have a half-hour or quarter-hour offset,
and areas that have an offset greater than
12 hours), and a section sign (§) for areas
that do not have a legal standard time (the
Greenland ice sheet and Antarctica). The
United Kingdom specifies UTC−3 for the
claimed British Antarctic Territory.
In maritime usage, GMT retains its

historical meaning of UT1, the mean solar
time at Greenwich. UTC, atomic time at
Greenwich, is too inaccurate, differing by
as much as 0.9 seconds from UT1,
creating an error of 1⁄4 of a minute of
longitude at all latitudes and which is 1⁄4
nautical mile (0.46 km; 0.29 mi) at the
equator but less at higher latitudes,
varying roughly by the cosine of the
latitude. However, DUT can be added to
UTC to correct it to within 50 milliseconds
of UT1, reducing the error to only 20
metres (66 ft).
Modern application
In practice, nautical times are used only

for radio communication, etc. Aboard the
ship, e.g. for scheduling work and meal
times, the ship may use a suitable time of
its own choosing. The captain is permitted
to change his or her clocks at a chosen
time following the ship's entry into another
time zone, typically at midnight. Ships on
long-distance passages change time zone
on board in this fashion. On short
passages the captain may not adjust
clocks at all, even if they pass through
different time zones, for example between
the UK and continental Europe. Passenger
ships often use both nautical and on-board
time zones on signs. When referring to
time tables and when communicating with
land, the land time zone must be
employed.
Usage
The nautical time zone system is an ideal
form of the terrestrial time zone system
for use on high seas. Under the system
time changes are required for changes of
longitude in one-hour steps. The one-hour
step corresponds to a time zone width of
15° longitude. The 15° gore that is offset
from GMT or UT1 (not UTC) by twelve
hours is bisected by the nautical date line
into two 7°30′ gores that differ from GMT
by ±12 hours. A nautical date line is
implied but not explicitly drawn on time
zone maps. It follows the 180th meridian
except where it is interrupted by territorial
waters adjacent to land, forming gaps: it is
a pole-to-pole dashed line.[3]
Time on a ship's clocks and in a ship's log

had to be stated along with a "zone
description", which was the number of
hours to be added to zone time to obtain
GMT, hence zero in the Greenwich time
zone, with negative numbers from −1 to
−12 for time zones to the east and positive
numbers from +1 to +12 to the west
(hours, minutes, and seconds for nations
without an hourly offset). These signs are
different from those given in the List of
UTC time offsets because ships must
obtain GMT from zone time, not zone time
from GMT.
Nautical day
Up to late 1805 the Royal Navy used three
days: nautical, civil (or "natural"), and
astronomical. A nautical day entered in a
ship's log as 10 July, for example,
commenced at noon on 9 July civil
reckoning, PM therefore coming before
AM. The astronomical day of 10 July, on
the other hand, commenced at noon of 10
July civil reckoning, and ended at noon on
11 July. The astronomical day was brought
into use following the introduction of the
Nautical Almanac in 1767, and the British
Admiralty issued an order ending the use
of the nautical day on 11 October 1805.
The US did not follow suit until 1848, while
many foreign vessels carried on using it
until the 1880s.
Prior to 1920, all ships kept solar time on

the high seas by setting their clocks at
night or at the morning sight so that, given
the ship's speed and direction, it would be
12 o'clock when the sun crossed the ship's
meridian. The local apparent noon is 12
noon.
References
1. "Nautical time zones | World-
Timezone.com" . www.world-
timezone.com. Retrieved 2019-04-17.
2. "World Time Zone Map" . Her
Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office.
Retrieved 2014-05-03.
3. Dutton, Benjamin (1942). Navigation
and nautical astronomy (7 ed.). United
States Naval Academy. Dept. of
Seamanship and Navigation. p. 253.
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Nautical time

This article needs additional citations for

Nautical time refers to the systems used

History of nautical time

The establishment of nautical standard

Around 1950, a letter suﬃx was added to

Zone Z runs from 7°30′W to 7°30′E

In maritime usage, GMT retains its

In practice, nautical times are used only

Time on a ship's clocks and in a ship's log

Prior to 1920, all ships kept solar time on

Last edited 7 months ago by an anonymous user

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless

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