ZONE TIME AND ZONE DESCRIPTION

Our objective is to know GMT, both day and time, in order to enter the Nautical Almanac to extract the
information needed to determine our position. However, around the world, people do not generally keep
time using GMT. Local times are applied based on geography, political boundaries and local practices. On
pages 262 to 265 the Nautical Almanac lists places fast and slow to GMT, the hour (and sometimes
minutes) differences, and footnotes regarding whether seasonal adjustments apply. It also notes that
some time boundaries are irregular. Bottom line: figure out what local time is being applied and what the
time difference is to GMT. This is essential knowledge for our purposes.

Moving away from land, time kept on a ship or boat is determined by the preference of the skipper. Some
skippers keep time in GMT. That solves some problems, but is uncomfortable in other respects. There is
something uncanny about complete darkness at 1200 noon GMT!

A common approach is to use Zone Time, ZT. This is a relatively simple system based on dividing the globe
into 24 zones. Zone 0 (or Zulu in radio speak) is centred on the prime meridian, 0° longitude at Greenwich.
Each zone covers 15° of longitude. Therefore, the edges of zone 0 are located at 7.5° west longitude and
7.5° east longitude. Moving west, the centre of each time zone is located at a longitude wholly divisible
by 15. Each zone is labelled by a Zone Description, ZD, which is an integer labelled from 1 to 12 labelled
with a plus (+) sign moving west of Greenwich, and 1 to 12 labelled with a minus (-) sign moving east of
Greenwich. Zone Descriptions are positive in west longitude and negative in east longitude. Zone 12 is
split, with half in west longitude (+) and half in east longitude (-), and its zone meridian at 180°, is the
International Date Line.

The Zone Description can be determined by geographic longitude. Let’s say you are located at 129° west
longitude. 129° divided by 15 equals 8.6 which rounds to the whole number 9. The ZD is +9. It is positive
because we are in west longitude. What if we were located at 053° east longitude? 53° divided by 15 is
3.533 which rounds up to 4. The ZD is -4 (negative because we are in east longitude). What if we were at
067° west longitude? 67° divided by 15 is 4.467. This rounds down to the whole number 4, so the ZD is +4
(positive in west longitude).

Knowing the above, we can now determine GMT from ZT, or ZT from GMT. Let’s say your ship time is kept
using geographic Zone Time (ZT) and you are at 080° west longitude. You note a ZT of 08-14-36 (hours-
minutes-seconds). 80° divided by 15 equals 5.333, so our ZD is +5. GMT would be 13-14-36 (local ZT plus
ZD of +5).
Here is the key formula:

GMT = ZT + ZD
If we were in day light savings time, we would reduce the ZD by one hour. Normally we show this by
keeping the standard ZD but depicting the daylight savings time adjustment with a “minus one”:

ZD = +5 – 1

To work form GMT back to ZT we keep the positive sign for ZD in west longitude and the negative sign for
ZD in east longitude, but we reverse the math from an addition to a subtraction:

ZT = GMT –(+ZD) in west longitude

ZT = GMT –(-ZD) IN east longitude
Let’s say you are located at 097° east longitude, and you know it is 04-55-13 GMT. What is your ZT? First
calculate ZD. 97° divided by 15 equals 6.46 so the ZD is -6. Now apply the formula for east longitude:

ZT = GMT – (-ZD)

By subtracting a negative, mathematically you end up adding. Our ZT whole hour becomes GMT 04 minus
a minus 6, so plus 6 = 10. Our ZT then is 10-55-13.

To get the right entry from the Nautical Almanac, we not only need to know the right time in
GMT, but the right day at Greenwich. This can be tricky. Let’s look at our classroom again as
an example. What are the time and day at Greenwich if our ZT is 2100 hours even?

We already know our ZD is +5. So GMT is easy. GMT = ZT + ZD, GMT = 2100 + 5 = 2600 hours. But, we only
have a 24 hour day. We need to subtract 24 to find the hours within the 24 hour clock. 26 minus 24 is 2.
We now have the right time, 0200 hours, but the day at Greenwich has changed. If it were Wednesday in
our classroom, it would be Thursday at Greenwich.

Here is a general rule: if you need to subtract 24 hours in your solution, add a day at Greenwich.

What if you are located at 80° east longitude? The ZD would be -5. What are the time and date at
Greenwich if our ZT is 0200 hours even?

Back to the formula: GMT = ZT + ZD. This time we have GMT = 0200 – 5. The answer would be negative
0300 hours. But we can’t have negative hours! The magic of the circle applies again: we can add a whole
24 hours to our negative solution and arrive at 2100 hours, an appropriate time within our 24 hour clock.
But the date is again different from Greenwich. If it is Wednesday at our location, it is still only Tuesday at
Greenwich.

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Here is another general rule: if you need to add 24 hours to your solution, subtract a day at Greenwich.

Take another look at your time diagrams. If you place the mean sun between the lower branches of the
observer and Greenwich, m and g, then the day at Greenwich is different from the day at the observer’s
location. This is another reason why drawing time diagrams is a good practice: it helps ensure you know
not only the time, but the day at Greenwich, both factors essential for entering the right row in the daily
pages of the Nautical Almanac.

Time diagram:

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