Nautical Time
Historically the day was divided into six four hour periods called watches. Each member of the crew was assigned a period where they would be assigned duties or would be "on watch". Traditionally the watches are named as follows: 0000 - 0400 Mid Watch 0400 - 0800 Morning Watch 0800 - 1200 Forenoon Watch 1200 - 1600 Afternoon Watch 1600 - 1800 First Dog Watch The reason behind this watch's existence is that in order for the crew to rotate through all the watches it was necessary to split one of the watches in half. This allowed the sailors to stand different watches instead of one team being forced to stand the mid-watch every night. The choice of time also allows both watches, if there are only two, to eat an evening meal at about the traditional time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_watch 1800 - 2000 Last Dog Watch 2000 - 0000 First Watch In the summer of 1966 I served as an ordinary seaman aboard the CCGS Stonetown , which was a weather ship as...