An interesting concept. Spending my formative years in the navy there was always an azimuth circle fitted to the repeater and the shop was always conned from the centreline repeater. Most merchant vessels I sailed in had no centreline repeater and the one azimuth ring available was shipped only while being used.
Wrt the c/l repeater the concept is the same with or without one.
I don’t imagine there’s much I could teach you about conning a ship but as you know; knowing the ship’s head then the actual compass bearings can be estimated by eye although maybe not as precisely as when using a C/L compass as an aid.
More precision can be gained when the helmsman calls out the passing headings.
However the technique of using a turning ship to take bearings is a little harder sell to a new third mate.
EDIT: The concept being what is called analog-to-digital in this thread I was calling visual to compass in that older thread. It’s done with or without a C/L compass.
Thanks for the historical info! Very interesting…
Mine does not I never look at it since I also have a large digital speed display which is my default.
I remember years ago as an apprentice being told if you have an accident with your hand you get compensated depending on the amount of digits you lose. My understanding was that digits were the three sections on each finger. So the word digital has been around long before it became associated with electronics and the Binary System. Most of what is being discussed in this thread is very interesting but I’m a little incognito also.
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Homer Simpson had good logic. Reminds me of fashionable topics about driverless cars. I had a car in the 60’s knew its own way home. It was way before its time. 
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There was a pub built in a suburb of Auckland that was built at the time when all bars closed at 18:00 and it was known as the six o’clock swill.
The main bar was designed for 2000 drinkers who on Thursday and Friday had an hour to throw as much beer as they could in the time available. If drinking had been an Olympic sport NZ would have won silver. The pub was surrounded by a vast car park.
The story goes that one inebriated driver offered to a cop was that he was too pissed to walk.
I was in the UK and had to get a mate to take a photo of a semitrailer tanker filling up the pub through a 3 inch line for the next session. The English thought I was exaggerating until they saw the photo.
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Was this pub The Poenamo? Did you meet Rupert there? 
The Poenamo was upmarket but the Ruperts drank at the war office at the Masonic.
The pub I was talking about was the Glen Innes. Every Monday they replaced the furniture and some structural elements after hosing the place out.
Back then my advice would have been if you were determined to go there on a Saturday would be to go in a tank regiment and remain in the tank.
If you wanted more excitement, or a death wish, there was always the Snakepit.
Yeah. Snake Pit, more formally The South Pacific Hotel. Many good sessions there in the milder 70’s.
When I was a pilot I use to point to port and stb when giving helm orders if the son is four finger
above the horizon you have an hour to sunset