A little sea story..

Pappy

Pappy

Living the Dream
Location
Moved back to NY from Florida. 🤓 2025
True or false, I can’t confirm, but interesting.


[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]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 LAT 0º 31' N and LON 179 30' W. The date was 31 December 1899.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]"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".[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Captain Phillips[/FONT][FONT=&quot] 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 & 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 & clear night worked in his favor.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]At midnight[/FONT][FONT=&quot] the SS Warrimoo lay on the Equator at exactly the point where it crossed the International Date Line! The consequences of this bizarre position were many:[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]The forward part (bow) of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere & in the middle of summer.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]The rear (stern) was in the Northern Hemisphere & in the middle of winter.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]The date in the aft part of the ship was 31 December 1899.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]In the bow (forward) part it was 1 January 1900.[/FONT][/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]This ship was therefore not only in:[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Two different days,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Two different months,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Two different years,[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Two different seasons[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]But in two different centuries - all at the same time.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]


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It's almost certainly false since the ship's position was almost forty-nine miles from the intersection. Given ships' speed, that means a trip of several hours.
 
Mark Twain and the S.S. Warrimoo in 1895
twain-on-board-e1317427356499.jpg


"A sailor explained to a young girl that the ship’s speed is poor because we are climbing up the bulge toward the center of the globe; but that when we should once get over, at the equator, and start down-hill, we should fly".


"Afternoon. Crossed the equator. In the distance it looked like a blue ribbon stretched across the ocean. Several passengers kodak’d it".


"Three days later, he describes crossing the international dateline:


"While we were crossing the 180th meridian 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".
 
Pappy, the Captain in 1899, was probably influenced by Mark Twain's 1895 humorous tale. It was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. It was a different world....they could recognize a joke, when they saw one!
 
I wasn't sure where to put this, so I'm putting it here. It is a bygone day.

For maximum impact, view it in Full-Screen mode at 1080p resolution (click "Play," select 1080p from the cog wheel, then click the
fullscreen.gif
icon, or else the picture will be fuzzy and small)

 
RadishRose said:
I wasn't sure where to put this, so I'm putting it here. It is a bygone day.

For maximum impact, view it in Full-Screen mode at 1080p resolution (click "Play," select 1080p from the cog wheel, then click the
fullscreen.gif
icon, or else the picture will be fuzzy and small)

Click to expand...
That's OK, Rose....I thought I saw Samuel Clemens in that crowd!:rolleyes:

SLCHelenAllen.jpg

Clemens and Helen Allen 1908
 
MARK TWAIN'S ANGEL-FISH ROSTER and other young women of interest

A follow up on the picture of Clemens and Helen Allen 1908:

"In 1907, at the age of seventy-two, lonely and widowed, Samuel Clemens began "collecting" surrogate granddaughters -- young girls between the ages of ten and sixteen. Some of the girls were those he met aboard ships that carried him back and forth to England or on his travels to the island of Bermuda. Clemens maintained correspondences with the girls -- most were from prominent and wealthy families who traveled in the same social circles with Clemens. They and their parents often visited him in his homes in New York".


"In 1906 Clemens had purchased 248 acres in Redding, Connecticut and with proceeds obtained from publishing portions of his autobiography in the North American Review between September 1906 through December 1907, he began construction of a large two-story country home. He originally intended to call the home "Autobiography House." The idea later occurred to him to dedicate the home to his surrogate granddaughters. In 1908 Clemens had begun calling his surrogate granddaughters "angel-fish" after the brilliant species of fish he saw on a visit to Bermuda. He nicknamed his group of girls the "Aquarium Club" and presented members with angel-fish pins. (At least one such pin survives and is currently owned by the Mark Twain Library in Redding, Connecticut.)"
 
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A GOLDEN Dragon signifies a sailor has crossed the international date line
15f0698c9dae83dc00f2e8a13291c201--navy-tattoos-international-date-line.jpg
 

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