Meet the clock master keeping Auckland’s giant time-keepers in line with daylight saving

NZ Herald

3 Apr, 2026 03:00 PM2 mins to read

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Jamie McKinnon, clock maker and owner of the Precision Watch Company, inspects the clock workings inside the Auckland Ferry Building tower on the city waterfront. Photo / Alex Robertson

Unlike Santa Claus, Jamie McKinnon, clock and watch maker and repairer, and owner of the Precision Watch Company in New Lynn, can’t be everywhere at once, so when it’s time to change the Auckland Ferry Building clock, it will be well into Sunday morning.

“I normally get here about 11am,”
he said from inside the clock tower this week. “But hopefully by the time people are having lunch in town, it will be on time.”

McKinnon has been looking after the Ferry Building clock for more than 50 years, one of 22 public clocks he maintains around the Auckland region from Waiuku to Warkworth, and he’ll be busy from the early hours of Sunday adjusting the time for daylight saving.

“I’m a great fan of it [daylight saving], although I hate to see the clocks going backwards,” he said. “But it means the mornings are a little bit lighter … and I favour the long days.”

McKinnon said the English-made clock in the Ferry Building is high quality, and the timepiece, first started on June 30, 1913, can keep time for hundreds of years, given correct maintenance.