When the sun's over the yard arm...

It has been forever since I last posted, but here I am! Reference class has proven to be trickier than imagined, but I am looking forward to the ready reference assignment because I am very over bibliographies.

A request from my uncle and dad last time I was home, was to find the origin of the phrase "the sun's over the yard arm" to denote the time of the day to have your first cocktail.

Uncle Marc, you were right about the yard arm, but its not dock workers but tipsy ships officers, and it actually happens at 11 in the morning.

This was one of those excellent moments where you google something and the first result is a good answer to your question that is cited from an authoritative source.

The beauty of online reference interactions (on message boards and public answer services) is that google can find them for the next person who wants to know the same thing, which isn't true of in-person reference.