Bells and Watches

Back in the old days of sailing, the correct time was not easy to come by. Nobody owned a watch then of course, but there was one precious timepiece on board: the navigator’s chronometer. That clock was the finest available, very expensive, and carefully wound on a strict schedule.

To alert the rest of the crew of the correct time, a deck officer would have the ship’s bell rung every half hour beginning at 12:30 am, until at 4 am the bell would be rung eight times. Then the sequence would begin again.

Each time the bell was rung, the strikes were sounded in quick pairs: ding-ding (pause) ding-ding (pause) ding-ding (pause) ding-ding. That was referred to as eight bells, and signaled the change of watch. Eight bells was often followed by a shouted assurance that “All is well.”

A watch is the period of time a part of the crew is on duty and working. Since the work of the ship never ceases, each watch is a four-hour period followed by a rest. The exception to that rule is the dog watch, which is split into two two-hour watches so that the evening meal can be served to all hands.


MIDWATCH - MIDNIGHT UNTIL 4 AM
MORNING WATCH - 4 AM UNTIL 8 AM
FORENOON WATCH - 8 AM UNTIL NOON
AFTERNOON WATCH - NOON UNTIL 4 PM
FIRST DOG WATCH - 4 PM UNTIL 6 PM
SECOND DOG WATCH - 6 PM UNTIL 8 PM
EVENING WATCH - 8 PM UNTIL MIDNIGHT


Often the watch assignments were based on the side of the ship on which the seamen slept, so there was a port watch and starboard watch. This arrangement meant that half the crew would be manning the ship at any time, and each section would work 12 hours a day in three four-hour segments. As each watch went below, they would rouse their mates on the other side to take their turn on deck.

On most ships, space was very limited, and often there were sleeping quarters for only half the seamen. This led to the practice of “hot bunking” meaning that when a sailor got out of his bunk to stand his watch, another sailor coming off watch would dive into his still-warm bedding.

Garlands and Brass Monkeys

There is a story that has been going around for many years that the expression "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" originated on board ship. In fact that story has taken hold so firmly that even the better dictionaries pass it along as fact.

The explanation they give for the expression: on warships the cannonballs were stacked at each gun station on a plate called a monkey, and that when the weather turned very cold the plate would shrink a bit and the cannonballs would then roll off.

Well, you might be able to stack cannonballs like that on shore, but certainly not on board ship where the deck is pitching and rolling constantly. Sorry, but that just won't work.

In fact there was a ready supply of cannonballs kept near the cannons, but they were stored on a "garland", which is a heavy board with holes cut in somewhat smaller than the diameter of the cannonballs. The balls would rest safely in those holes until needed, and no matter how heavy the seas, they stayed in place. Far in the past, probably 16th C., a few cannonballs would be temporarily settled into a nest of rope on deck near the cannons. This rope ring is probably the origin of the term garland, which means a wreath or grommet.

So where did this idea of a stack of cannonballs come from? From all the research I found on the subject, this fanciful explanation is less than 25 years old. "The modern notion that iron shot were stored on a sort of cake-stand arrangement called a 'brass monkey' was perpetuated by, and indeed possibly originated with, Bill Beavis and Richard G. McClosky, the authors of Salty Dog Talk-:Granada Publishing, Adlard Coles Limited (1983). (John H. Harland, Research Note)

So that fanciful expression is just naughty, not nautical. Still, it's a great image, and always makes people smile, and that's not all bad.

Magnetic North is Moving

North is North, right? Well, yes and no. When a mariner is talking about directions and courses and positions and fixes, all the stuff of navigation, he is well aware of the two different "North" poles commonly used as the prime reference on our planet.

The geographic North Pole is the location of the axis around which the earth rotates. Navigators call that "True North" when they are using that pole as their reference. The other north pole is "Magnetic North", which is handy for mariners because the ship's compass card aligns in that direction. The problem lies in that those two poles are not in the same location...close enough to be handy, but not the same place.

That difference in location is compounded by the fact that Magnetic North is on the move, constantly shifting and drifting around northern Canada. As you can see on the graphic, the magnetic pole of our planet seems to be moving northward lately, headed out into the Arctic Ocean.

The shifting of Magnetic North causes a problem for seafarers, because the needle on the ship's magnetic compass keeps changing direction over the years. As a result, the charts that mariners use become outdated. A really important piece of information printed on the chart, the variation factor, is used to make a compass correction when charting a course. The variation is the angle of difference between Magnetic North and True North for a specific location on the chart. As the magnetic north pole shifts, so does that angle.

The planet Earth, with its molten iron core, behaves like a magnet, complete with "magnetic fields", loops of magnetic influence that encircle the planet, causing our compasses to point in the right direction, and creating the Aurora Borealis. With the change in location of our Magnetic North pole, that magnificent light show will begin to be visible over Northern Europe in years to come.