Hourglass Brass

Traditionally ship's speed was measured in knots. The ship's speed was needed to roughly calculate its position. It was measured with a long line, along rope which was knotted at fixed intervals. Using a floater the line was run out from the aft deck. The hourglass was used to time and on stopping the line, it was retrieved and the knots paid out during minutes were counted. Knots were then translated into nautical miles, which actually are bigger than land-miles.

This brass, handtooled sandtimer orginally counted approx. 30 seconds, which has been lengthened to 3 minutes. This makes it into a functional desk item to time phone calls.