What ship's Time do you Keep?

[sneuman]

Of my few passages, all have been generally North-South, rather than having much longitude change, or at least no enough to sail through multiple time zones. Just curious about what ship time to keep. Do you keep GMT, leaving port, arrival port or something in between? If not GMT, do you change with the time zones along the way or stick with one time?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by sneuman

Of my few passages, all have been generally North-South, rather than having much longitude change, or at least no enough to sail through multiple time zones. Just curious about what ship time to keep. Do you keep GMT, leaving port, arrival port or something in between? If not GMT, do you change with the time zones along the way or stick with one time?

Laptop GMT.... phone local time till next time zone...

[bvimatelot]

Keep the log in Zulu time but change time zones as you proceed otherwise you'll be a bit discombobulated when you arrive. You don't have to be anal about it - Winston Churchill called it "Stomach Time"

Tony

[rognvald]

Good question. When we sail locally within a constant time zone, we use 24 hour military time/local. If we sail through different time zones, we always use GMT for consistency and as an aid when taking our noon and evening sites.

[donradcliffe]

Ship's time is up to the captain. On my boat, it starts with the local time at departure, and gets adjusted when its dark at 7 pm/am. My watch has dual time zones, with one set to ship's time and one to GMT.

[sneuman]

Yeah, I was thinking the ship should keep GMT, but with BVimatelot that it isn't going to "feel right" to the crew. I've always kept local time aboard but asked the crew to use GMT for log entries - after the first few entries crew invariably reverts to local time.

[LeaseOnLife]

Originally Posted by bvimatelot

Keep the log in Zulu time but change time zones as you proceed otherwise you'll be a bit discombobulated when you arrive. You don't have to be anal about it - Winston Churchill called it "Stomach Time"

Tony

We call it sun-set time. On a typical tradewind passage E-W, each day is about 10-15 min longer than 24h. We both like to watch the sunset at dinner, then one of us is going to sleep for the then 3h. We kept the boat clock pretty much in sync to the sun, adding 10-15 min to each day.

Another clock is set to Zulu times and has alarms for SSB nets and times for weatherfax etc.

Dirk

[svBeBe]

Computers, ship's clock at nav station and the logbook are kept at GMT. Wristwatches are changed as the time zone changes and our watch schedules are adjusted accordingly to keep bio-rhythms in sync with daylight/darkness as we progress through time zones. If we are only changing 1 time zone it doesn't make any difference. But during long passages or ocean crossings this helps us adjust to the time changes and arrive in sync with the new locale.

Judy

[Astrid]

My main chronometer is set to GMT. The other clocks and watches are set to the current time zone.

[captain58sailin]

The ship keeps LMT, on the Ship's clock there is an additional hand that shows GMT, all log entries are done in LMT using the 24 hour clock, watches are kept on LMT. GMT is used for celestial navigation fixes, LMT is used for position fixes on the charts.

[sneuman]

Interesting array of opinions. It sounds like nearly everyone keeps GMT and LMT - the only difference of opinion seems to be whether logs are kept in GMT or LMT. I would think that LMT for logs could complicate things quite a bit.

[MarkJ]

Computers can have as many clocks as they like so its not difficult to have one set for GMT, one LT, one for weather reports etc.

As long as you keep flexible (or totally strict) then it doesn't really matter.

In the Mediteranian its so close to GMT that that's quite convenient. But in the Pacific adding or subtractic 14 or 17 hours is a disorientating pain in the butt.

On long passages I change it when it's still dark at 7am.
It's interesting to see those others who have done long passages don't really care either... Just making sunset occur at dinner time that's probably most important.

As I get closer to a destination it's fun to switch to destination time.

It's like "What day is it?" It doesn't really matter.

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by sneuman

Interesting array of opinions. It sounds like nearly everyone keeps GMT and LMT - the only difference of opinion seems to be whether logs are kept in GMT or LMT. I would think that LMT for logs could complicate things quite a bit.

Dont think LMT for the log will complicate things, we always use ships time for the log (near enough LMT). Top of the page has an entry for what time zone is being used, and if clocks are adjusted, that is recorded in the log.
Think I'd be more confused if the log was kept in GMT.
Only log required to be kept to GMT was the old radio log (if you kept one)

[goboatingnow]

Nautical time and UT, log in UT

dave

[daddle]

Nobody uses LMT underway. Well maybe that parchment chart and astrolabe guy does. LMT would need to be updated every few miles. It's related to solar time or the local apparent time. There must be some other acronym for local zone time.