Meet the remarkable mechanism at Staithes Museum that celebrates John Harrison’s quest to solve one of the great challenges of seafaring: how do you know exactly where you are when all you can see is sea? There is something wonderfully satisfying about the Devon Sea Clock at Staithes Museum. With its brass gears, swinging arms, intricate framework and three separate dials, it looks as though somebody has taken a clock apart and then decided to leave all the interesting bits o

Staithes Museum's replica of the Harrison Clock At Staithes Museum, we often think of Captain Cook’s voyages as the height of 18th-century maritime exploration — voyages that depended not only on courage and seamanship but also on advances in navigation. Among the most pressing questions of the age was how to find a ship’s longitude at sea — a problem so difficult it spawned a royal reward and centuries of effort. Most people have heard of John Harrison’s marine timekeepers.