OzSTOC
No Parking Zone! => Off Topic, Off Colour, and non-motorcycle related => Topic started by: JuST Peter on January 16, 2017, 03:12:11 PM
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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 December 31st, 1900. “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 December 31st, 1900. Forward it was January 1st, 1901.
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.
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Not quite right the two century thing. it would have to be have been 1900/1901 for that to happen. 100 years in a century not 99. 1900 is the 100th year and 1901 is the 1st year
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Fascinating!
That ship came to a disastrous end-
"In late 1914 WARRIMOO was taken up as a troopship. On 17 May 1918 when on a convoy from Bizerta to Marseille she collided with the escorting French destroyer CATAPULTE. In the collision the destroyer’s depth-charges were dislodged; they exploded in the water blowing out the bottom plates of both ships, causing them both to sink with some loss of life."
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Not quite right the two century thing. it would have to be have been 1900/1901 for that to happen. 100 years in a century not 99. 1900 is the 100th year and 1901 is the 1st year
Yes, we had all that pointed out to us in 2000.
We'll just have to say that the two halves of the ship were in the "numerically different centuries". :grin
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Not quite right the two century thing. it would have to be have been 1900/1901 for that to happen. 100 years in a century not 99. 1900 is the 100th year and 1901 is the 1st year
Oops! I also missed the 31st of December in the second last sentence - I'll have to fix my blues :grin
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Fixed! :thumbsup
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Not quite right the two century thing. it would have to be have been 1900/1901 for that to happen. 100 years in a century not 99. 1900 is the 100th year and 1901 is the 1st year
Oops! I also missed the 31st of December in the second last sentence - I'll have to fix my blues :grin
I noticed that but I wondered if any one else would mention it.