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Hello H.E.,

Here's a little trivia on how we got to 16 bells on New Year's. The Ship's Bell has traditionally been carried on board since man developed shaping of metal, and it was made of brass with the ship's name engraved on it. The practice of ringing bells at sea is as old as the bells themselves and served several purposes. Sounding the ship's bell was used to call the crew to quarters, as a fog signal, for special occasions, and also to mark the passing of time.

In years past, accurate clocks were not available, or to expensive to carry aboard, so sand hour glasses were used to measure time. The ship's boys or midshipmen were assigned responsibility for turning the hour glass, usually every half hour, with the practice of sounding the ship's bell every time the sand glass was turned.

Unlike civil clocks, the number of strikes of the ship's bell does not indicate the hour; instead, they were sounded to mark the time of a duty period. Starting at the beginning of a duty period, every half hour was marked by the ringing of one bell, with an additional ring for each subsequent half hour. Therefore 1230 was marked with one bell, 1300 by two bells and so on, counting until eight bells were sounded marking the end of a four-hour duty period, hence the saying "Eight bells and all is well."

NEW YEAR'S EVE - 16 Bells

On 31 December at the end of the evening watch at 2400, sixteen bells were struck to mark the end of an old year and the beginning of a new. Tradition called for the oldest person on board to "ring out" the old year with 8 bells, while the youngest person on board followed with 8 bells to "ring in" the new.

All the best,

Captain Gordon Hartschuh

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Hello H.E.,

Gordon has it right. Back in the day (and maybe still) on tall ships bells were rung to keep track of time during watches. During a four hour watch bells were rung every half hour, thus on the eighth bell the watch was over. On the New Year they would sound 16 bells, 8 for the old year and 8 for the new year. And yes, the oldest crew member sounded the first eight, the youngest sounded the last eight.

Have a good watch,

Captain Craig Bliss