ultramarin marine translations
ultramarin.online
nl hondswacht
hondewacht
     
de Hundswache
Mittelwache
zweite Wache
 
en dog watch
mid(dle) watch
graveyard watch
dog watch: a two-hour watch either between 16.00 and 18.00hrs or between 18.00 and 20.00 hrs to enable a change of rhythm in a 4-hourly change of the watch;
fr quart de minuit
petit quart
 
es guarda de cuartillo  
rus gavettone  
dk hundevagt      
se hundvakt      
     
en "An explanation of the 'dog watches' may, perhaps, be of use to one who has never been at sea. They are to shift the watches each night, so that the same watch need not be on deck at the same hours. In order to effect this, the watch from four to eight, P.M., is divided into two half, or dog watches, one from four to six, and the other from six to eight. By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven watches instead of six, and thus shift the hours every night. As the dog watches come during twilight, after the day's work is done, and before the night watch is set, they are the watches in which everybody is on deck. The captain is up, walking on the weather side of the quarter-deck, the chief mate on the lee side, and the second mate about the weather gangway. The steward has finished his work in the cabin, and has come up to smoke his pipe with the cook in the galley. The crew are sitting on the windlass or lying on the forecastle, smoking, singing, or telling long yarns. At eight o'clock, eight bells are struck, the log is hove, the watch set, the wheel relieved, the galley shut up, and the other watch goes below."
R.H.Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, Boston 1842, p. 19