Today I learnt: Ship’s Bells

Ahoy thar maties. Eight bells and all’s well! (Spoken with an abysmal

pirate accent).

Alright, enough of me poorly impersonating a pirate. As you may or

may not know, based on comments in one or more of my previous episodes,

I dabble a bit in clock repair. Specifically, mechanical clocks, powered

by springs or gravity. My grandfather was a clockmaker, and I remember

sitting, as still and quietly as I could, in his shop watching him work.

I was fascinated, but I could not ask any questions, make any noise, or

touch anything at risk of being told to leave. So, I learned very

little, but it did plant a seed deep inside me which would flourish many

years after my grandfather passed away.

I plan to do a series about mechanical clocks and some of my

experiences with clock repair in upcoming months. This has been

simmering on the back burner for quite a while as I debated if it would

really be of interest to hackers. My mind creates stories of listeners

shouting “Oh for crying out loud! First six episodes about plumbing and

now clocks? Get to something interesting!” However, I am pressing on. If

you like this episode and want more in the series, please leave a

comment. If you would prefer other types of content on HPR, then skip

the rest of this episode and record one more suited to your desires or

detailing what you would like to hear and why.

Also, you will probably hear the ticking (and maybe striking) of

various different clocks in the background of this recording. My new

home office space is also the home for close to a dozen clocks in

various states of repair. It is challenging to remove their sounds from

the recording, and given the subject matter of this series, I am not

even going to try to remove them.

Back to the topic. A couple of years ago, I purchased a very

inexpensive box of assorted clocks and clock parts from a local seller.

These were in various states of disrepair. One item in the advertisement

for this box immediately caught my eye. It was a brass Urgos brand

“Ship’s Bell” clock. This timepiece was literally dripping with oil, but

seemed to be intact, and I started working on it. In a later podcast, I

will describe my approach to items like this and what is involved in

initially cleaning and evaluating them. Due to life challenges, it took

me over a year to get this clock reassembled and working.

With this clock, I learned that ship’s bells do not strike a normal

hour count like traditional striking clocks. Instead, their strike

directly relates to the time of an historic ship’s watch schedule.

According to “The Ship’s Bell”, an article from Naval History and

Heritage Command (https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/heritage/customs-and-traditions0/the-ship-s-bell.html),

early shipboard timekeeping was done through the use of a half-hour

glass. The job for one of the ship’s boys was to watch the glass, turn

it when it ran out, and then strike the ship’s bell so all onboard would

be aware of the time every half hour.

On sea vessels, various persons on duty “Keep watch” at, or around,

their station. These include the “Lookout” who was constantly “watching”

all around the ship to ensure there was no danger and to alert of any

sightings of land or other vessels. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchkeeping )

The ship’s bell had many other uses beyond timekeeping, and those are

described in detail in the previously mentioned Naval History article.

With all this bell ringing, patterns were developed. For timekeeping,

this basically broke down to a specific pattern of incrementing strikes

every