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TIME MEASUREMENT
In the Royal Navy today, time is expressed in terms of the 24 hour clock, eg. 6.30am is 0630, 6.30pm is 1830.
The day used to be split into six watches of four hours each and time was measured by how far through the watch you were.
The problem with the six hour watch was that in some situations, people were stuck doing the same watch every day. To get round this, the late afternoon (or DOG watch) was split into two watches of only 2 hours each. This made the total number of watches up to seven.
The watches are as follows:
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At the beginning and end of each watch, eight bells are rung to signify that the next duty watch is taking over. Half an hour into the watch, 1 bell is rung. After the second half-hour, two bells are rung. After the third half-hour, three bells are rung - and so on for each half-hour. Bells are always struck in pairs, with any left over struck singly, eg. for 5 bells it's: ding ding - ding ding - ding §. |
