TIME ZONES | RYA NAVIGATION COURSE

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Time Zones UT, GMT, Zulu Time etc

Summary for the RYA Training Charts 3 and 4, Almanac and Exercises:

RYA Chart Area	Time	Time Zone	Country equivalent
Northern Territory	UT	0000	UK
Northern Territory Daylight Saving Time	UT + 1	0000	UK - BST - Summer Time
Southern Peninsula Standard Time SPST	UT + 1	- 0100	France - French Standard Time
Southern Peninsula Daylight Saving Time SPDST	UT + 2	- 0100	France - French Summer Time

UTC - Universal Time Coordinated : is the same as GMT

The sun rises in the east and countries to the east of Greenwich set their time earlier, and to the west the time is later, in 24 Time Zones round the world, which are 15º longitude.

The Greenwich Time Zone of 15º is designated Zone 0000 and is 7½º of longitude either side of Greenwich. At 180º longitude (East or West) the zone is 7½ º either side.

For navigation purposes the times are designated Zone -0100, Zone -0200 etc as you travel to the East. To the West of Greenwich, zones are +0100, +0200 etc. This is because in celestial navigation a ship must derive GMT/UT from their current Zone Time, not Zone Time from UT.

Time Zone 0000 is conventionally known as UT or UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Zone zero is also known as ‘Zulu’ time in many applications in the Met Office, Coastguard and military Services eg 1330Z

For Zone -0100, you must ADD 1 hour to UT to obtain local time (because the sun rises earlier). So 1445 in UK is 1545 in France - see any nautical almanac for real life example.

As an example France is in Time Zone -0100. French Standard Time is UT+1. French Summer Time is UT+2.

In the fictitious RYA charts, Northern Peninsula Time is Zone 0000. Southern Peninsula Time is Zone -0100, which is UT+1.

Summer Time - Daylight Saving Time
SPDST - Southern Peninsula Daylight Saving Time, is Summer Time in that area, and is UT+2. The almanac will tell you to add 1 hour in the non shaded months, the summer months.

BST - British Summer Time (UT+1), is the same as French Standard Time (UT+1).

Secondary Ports
When calculating secondary port time differences, use the tide times for the standard port directly from the almanac, do not adjust for Summer Time. The secondary port differences are only valid for Local Standard time. Add the hour for Summer Time AFTER you find the difference in time between the Standard Port and the Secondary Port.

Time Zones for RYA exercises Navigation Northern Hemisphere UTC UT BST SPDST SPST longitude 0100 French summer time standard time UT+1 UT+2