Eli5: Historically, time during the night was measured by ‘watches’; eg. First watch, Second watch, etc. How did people determine when one watch ended and the next began?

Question

It can’t be influenced by the moon or stars in the sky, because how would they measure the time during a moonless cloudy night?

Edit: How would, say, 3 common travellers camping on the road measure time at night?

In: 38

Answer 1

With an hourglass, actually. If you can handle the salty and the (maybe) cursing, Sacred Cow Shipyards on YouTube just did a fantastic video about keeping time on historic Navy Wessels. I learned a lot from it: