View single post by Foster
 Posted: Sat May 17th, 2008 11:27 am
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Foster



Joined: Fri Apr 7th, 2006
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 Marine chronometers were gimbaled, which is to say, they were mounted in rings that pivoted to help eliminate the effect of the ship's movement on the clock.

Kind of like this Hamilton





The thing about the chronometers was that they were extremely precise.  They may not have even been as accurate as today's COSC certified watches, but their deviation from the correct time was always the same.

That is to say, if the timepiece ran 5 seconds fast per day, it  did it day in and day out.  The deviation from the correct time was then accounted for in the ship's navigation calculations.