The Strange story of the SS Warrimoo

[gordi]

There is an infamous ship which was once seen in Summer AND Winter, in TWO different centuries, in TWO different hemispheres of the Earth AT THE SAME TIME!

Was it Time-Travel? A Time-Space Distortion?

No.

A Simple stroke of luck and some fine navigation skills placed the ship SS Warrimoo at exactly the right place at the right time to achieve the "impossible" feat of time / space displacement!


Fellow Rogues. may I present The Strange Story of The SS Warrimoo...

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 30 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.

Bizarre, but True!

 

SOURCE Article

G

[BIAD]

Wow!
So a sailor could pick up his plate of salted sardines, then take a forkful and put it in his mouth saying
-as he walked across the deck, "It'll be next year before I finish chewing this"!!

A great article Gordi, thank you.

[Wallfire]

I can almost do better than that (almost). 
A few years ago a friend of mine wile we were walking along the bank of the river Tornio, took out a golf ball and his golf club, set the ball up and hit it as hard as he could , it almost got to the other side. Well he said, I hit that ball so hard it took an hour to get to the other side.
( The river Tornio is the river that flows between  Sweden and Finland in Lapland. There is an hour different s between the two countries)

[Mystic Wanderer]

Great story!    

[Ninurta]

Wow!
So a sailor could pick up his plate of salted sardines, then take a forkful and put it in his mouth saying
-as he walked across the deck, "It'll be next year before I finish chewing this"!!

A great article Gordi, thank you.

Where does one obtain salted sardines? I mean, that right there is TWO of the four basic food groups all rolled into one! The only ones left are beer and hot peppers!

Inquiring minds want to know - and I've got to git me some of those!

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