General Chat

The passenger steamer SS Warrimoo was quietly knifing its way through the waters of the mid-Pacific on its way from Vancouver to Australia.

The navigator had just finished working out a star fix and brought the master, Captain John Phillips, the result. The Warrimoo’s position was latitude 0 degrees x 31 minutes north and longitude 179 degrees x 30 minutes west.

The date was 31 December 1899. “Know what this means?” First Mate Payton broke in, “we’re only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line”.

Captain Phillips was prankish enough to take full advantage of the opportunity for achieving the navigational freak of a lifetime. He called his navigators to the bridge to check and double check the ships position. He changed course slightly so as to bear directly on his mark. Then he adjusted the engine speed.

The calm weather and clear night worked in his favour.

At midnight the “Warrimoo” lay on the Equator at exactly the point where it crossed the International Date Line!

The consequences of this bizarre position were many. The forward part of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere and the middle of summer. The stern was in the Northern Hemisphere and in the middle of winter. The date in the aft part of the ship was 31 December 1899. Forward it was 1 January 1900.

This ship was therefore not only in two different days, two different months, two different seasons and two different years but in two different centuries, all at the same time.

:-D

:-D :-D :-D

At that time commercial navigation used Mercator projections for charts which assume that the earth is a sphere. It is not a sphere and bulges at the equator by some 60km. The captain may not have been quite where he thought he was.

An of course he was totally in the nineteenth century as the twentieth did not begin until 1st January 1901.

I thought it was a nice story.

Don't kill the messenger.

:-)

Seem to recall. Allegedly , Pitcairn Island moved about, a bit!

You are right Scozz, it is a nice story.

If only they had done the same thing next year to satisfy pedants like me.
:-D

:-D :-D :-D

and India was where they thought it was either!!