Spring fore, fall aft.

I have been on several boats this week, and when I checked the chartplotters, I noticed that the time had not been changed since we sprang forward, so this is a gentle reminder to do so. We all set our microwaves, and clock radios to the correct time, and this needs to be done to many brands of navigation devices.

Not having the right time offset throws off the tides, and current data, and ETA's by an hour, and this can cause problems, especially if you boat in a tide sensitive environment. This notably affects Furuno and Raymarine, but many other brands need the time offset manually adjusted.

So the current offset for "Eastern Standard Time" from GMT, UTC, and Zulu time (all names for the same thing) is now -4 hours. Central time is -5 hours, Mountain time is -6 hours, and Pacific time is -7 hours. Not to leave Canada out, Atlantic time is -3 hours. So the next time you're on your boat, check the current time on your chartplotter. If the time is not correct, change it, and life will be better, or at least more accurate. I will remind you again in the fall to go aft on the clocks..