What Time Zone did Titanic sink in?
Daniel Perez
relation to Greenwich Time? Was it three or four hours behind Greenwich?
Yours truly,
Daniel Perez
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Tom Pappas
clocks to noon each day as the sun transits the meridian the ship occupies.
Titanic sank at 02:20 ship time, which was 05:47 GMT, or 00:47 EST.
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Doug Urquhart
>
> The oceans don't have time zones per se. Ships crossing the ocean set their
> clocks to noon each day as the sun transits the meridian the ship occupies.
>
> Titanic sank at 02:20 ship time, which was 05:47 GMT, or 00:47 EST.
Well, there's a bit more to it than that. It's true that time zones, in
the sense of the legal fictions we use on land, don't exist at sea, but
there is the fact that local time changes an hour for every 15 degrees
of longitude.
What this means to Titanic, which sunk at 49 degrees 58 minutes west,
is that her local time zone was three hours behind Greenwich.
Justification as follows.
(Greenwich is in the middle of its 15 degree time zone, so you only need
7.5 degrees to get to the next.)
after 7.5 degrees, we are 1 hour behind Greenwich
after 7.5 + 15 degrees (22.5) we are 2 hours behind
after 22.5 +15 degrees (37.5) we are 3 hours behind
after 37.5 +15 degrees (52.5) we are 4 hours behind
As for setting the ship's clocks:
The chronometer (used for navigation) would have been set to GMT.
As for the ship's clocks - as long as the word 'set' is past tense, I
agree with Tom; these days, at least for the amateur crowd, the
convention is to change by one hour when crossing the 15-degree line.
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Regards
Doug Urquhart
<email address mis-spelled to avoid spam>
Bob Botts
Doug,
Now if you can just explain 'time dilation' as easily... ;-)
>Well, there's a bit more to it than that. It's true that time zones, in
...snip...
Fearless Fosdick
that devided the globe into even slices at 15° intervals
(oversimplification but basicly the concept...). Time (shipboard) would
have been constantly reset to local "sun time" as the ship traveled -
however, I cannot claim knowledge of the actual practice and procedure
whereby this was actually done. If anyone has some details on just how
this was practiaclly done, it would be most appreciated.
Acknowledge that GMT would have been the standard for navigation - date &
GMT combined with star sightings would have been the basis by which
position would have been calculated. (reference Boxhall's testimony in
U.S. Senate hearings just after the wreck...)
Andrew and Rebecca Hall
>
> Time (shipboard) would
> have been constantly reset to local "sun time" as the ship traveled -
> however, I cannot claim knowledge of the actual practice and procedure
> whereby this was actually done.
If other, later transatlantic liners are representative of practice
on Titanic, "ship's time" was reset once a day based on the local "sun
time" as determined by the navigator. On the North Atlantic crossing
in 1912, this would amount to (very roughly) an hour per day. At the
same time the previous day's run would be posted for the benefit of
those participating in the inevitable betting pool. This is covered in
Maxtone-Graham's "The Only Way to Cross." I'm not sure where this
would've been on Titanic, although I can think of several likely
places.
On Titanic, according to The Shipbuilder, there were 40-some clocks
all over the ship that could be adjusted automatically by one of two
master clocks in the chart room. Now *that's* slick!
-------------> AH
Doug Urquhart
>
> Well... I believe that in 1912, there was no "standard" time zone practice
> that devided the globe into even slices at 15° intervals
> (oversimplification but basicly the concept...).
Maybe I'm having a bad day, but that sounded like a throwaway line from
an arrogant pillock!
We were talking about local time, not the legal concept of Time Zones
(in which, for example, one can travel from London to Bordeaux, which
involves a westward change of longitude, and end up one hour ahead of
Greenwich, or travel across the whole of China and stay in the same Time
zone. And then, of course, there's Newfoundland!)
What I was referring to was, if you like, solar time. Earth rotates 360
degrees once a day. 360 degrees in 24 hours = 15 degrees per hour.
Simple. Not simplification.
> Time (shipboard) would
> have been constantly reset to local "sun time" as the ship traveled -
> however, I cannot claim knowledge of the actual practice and procedure
> whereby this was actually done. If anyone has some details on just how
> this was practiaclly done, it would be most appreciated.
>
Tom's post already covered this.
> Acknowledge that GMT would have been the standard for navigation - date &
> GMT combined with star sightings would have been the basis by which
> position would have been calculated. (reference Boxhall's testimony in
> U.S. Senate hearings just after the wreck...)
i.e standard Celestial Navigation.
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