The story of the original chronometer is one fraught with marine tragedy, political skulduggery and the tenacity of arguably one of the most important watchmakers of all time. In our modern era, we have become accustomed to almost all our high-end watches being COSC certified and therefore, technically, chronometer rated. In recent times, a new standard has been set known as Master Chronometer, that takes the testing of a watch’s all-round performance up a level. To use the Spinal Tap analogy, if COSC goes up to 10, then the Master Chronometer goes to 11…
Marine navigation was something of a best guess until the mid-18th century. Without turning this piece into a geography lesson — nobody wants that, I’m sure — let’s take a quick look at the theory behind marine navigation. Before the days of digital satellite navigation, to plot a course and, more importantly, monitor a ship’s progress against said course, one had to be able to accurately determine both the latitude and longitude position of the ship. If one can determine the position of the sun in the daytime and stars at night, then pinpointing the latitude is relatively easy. To accurately determine longitude, timing is everything, and a combination of speed and direction can be used
