Happy New Year

In two years at the same time.

In 1895, Mark Twain was aboard the SS Warrimoo, traveling around the world on a speaking tour. In his essay, "Following the Equator" he describes the following:

While we were crossing the 180th meridian {the International Date Line} it was Sunday in the stern of the ship where my family were, and Tuesday in the bow where I was. They were there eating the half of a fresh apple on the 8th, and I was at the same time eating the other half of it on the 10th - and I could notice how stale it was, already. The family were the same age that they were when I had left them five minutes before, but I was a day older now than I was then. The day they were living in stretched behind them half way round the globe, across the Pacific Ocean and America and Europe; the day I was living in stretched in front of me around the other half to meet it.

Along about the moment that we were crossing the Great Meridian a child was born in the steerage, and now there is no way to tell which day it was born on. The nurse thinks it was Sunday, the surgeon thinks it was Tuesday. The child will never know its own birthday. It will always be choosing first one and then the other, and will never be able to make up its mind permanently. This will breed vacillation and uncertainty in its opinions about religion, and politics, and business, and sweethearts, and everything, and will undermine its principles, and rot them away, and make the poor thing characterless, and its success in life impossible.

Mark Twain also described how a "rich brewer" on board had promised to give $10,000 to the family if the baby arrived on the rich man's birthday. "The doctor thought he was born on Tuesday and the nurse thought he was born on Sunday. Monday, the day that dropped from the calendar, was the brewer's birthday. One needn't check the records to suspect that the story is too implausible to be true." [Cooper, p71]

Four years later, Captain John Phillips was approaching the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line on December 30th. As reported in Ships of Australia and New Zealand:

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 - all at the same time.

Sources:

Cooper, Robert. Around the World with Mark Twain. Arcade Publishing, 2000. p90-1.

Euller, John. Ships and the Sea. "A freak of navigation". Vol 3. p. 18. September 1953.

The Ottawa Journal (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). "In Two Places, at One Time" 13 May 1942, Wed: Page 8.

Passenger Ships of Australia and New Zealand Volume 1. Crossed Flags (World Ship Society). 1964

The Sydney Morning Herald. (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia). "Arrival of the H.M.S. Warrimoo" 10 Jan 1900, Wed: Page 8.