Nautical time to the zero zone, and A–M (except J) to the east and N–Y to the west (J may be assigned to local time in non-nautical applications — zones M and Y have the same clock time but differ by 24 hours: a full day). These can be vocalized using the NATO phonetic alphabet which pronounces the letter "Z" as "Zulu", leading to the use of the term "Zulu Time" for Greenwich Mean Time, or UT1 from January 1, 1972 onward. Zone Z runs from 7°30′W to 7°30′E longitude, while zone A runs from 7°30′E to 22°30′E longitude, etc. These nautical
Mercator 1569 world map that OE=OD, here approximately 54°. This is a measure of the rhumb line distance between the points on the sphere corresponding to A and B on the spherical Earth. Since each degree on the equator corresponds to 60 nautical miles the sailing distance is 3240 nautical miles for this example. If B is in the second quadrant with respect to A then the upper rose is used and if B is west of A then the longitude separation is simply reversed. Mercator also gives a refined method which is useful for small azimuths. The above method is explained in Legend