Navigational Genius

Navigation on the ocean takes specific skills. Captain Phillips, of the S.S. Warrimoo, was known as something of a practical joker.

On a the night of December 30, 1899, the good captain was, by accounts, relaxing with a cigar and enjoying the calm waters of the mid-Pacific Ocean, as his ship sailed from Vancouver, BC to Australia.

His navigator approached him and drew his attention to the ship’s position – latitude 0 degrees 30 minutes North and longitude 179 degrees 30 minutes West. First Mate Dayldon said, ‘Captain, we’re only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line.’

Captain Phillips knew exactly what it meant, and decided to take advantage of an opportunity to achieve the navigational feat of a lifetime.

Crossing the Date Line is often confusing enough for passengers, as a day can simply ‘disappear,’ but the possibilities he had before him were enough to confound them for the rest of their lives.

He gathered four more navigators to the bridge to check and double-check the ship’s position every few minutes and adjusted engine speed and direction delicately to strike his mark at precisely the right moment. The calm weather, and the eager cooperation of the crew worked conspired to help him.

There was no margin for error.

On the dot of midnight local time, the Warrimoo lay precisely on the Equator, exactly at the point where it crosses the International Date Line! This is interesting for a number of reasons – if one crosses the Date Line at exactly midnight, December 31 never really happens. The date immediately jumps to January 1.

Furthermore,  once the Date Line is crossed at the Equator, as the Warrimoo did, for a moment the bow of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summer, while the stern was in the Northern Hemisphere, where it is winter. This also meant that this occasion the ship, was not only on two different days, during two different months and two different years, in two different seasons, it was also in two different centuries – all at the same time!

Captain Phillips said later: ‘I have never heard of it happening before and I guess it won’t happen again for another one hundred years.’

What brilliant thinking and seamanship!