Straddling Two Centuries At Once
On the his 1895 voyage across the Pacific on the SS Warimoo Mark Twain crossed the equator, but for mariners the Holy Grail was to cross the Equator at the 180th meridian, a feat that entitles a sailor in the US Navy to become a Golden Shellback. An even rarer honour is the Emerald Shellback or Royal Diamond Shellback, bestowed on American and Commonwealth sailors respectively who have crossed the Equator at the Prime Meridian.
Although immortalized by Twain, the SS Warrimoo entered the annals of history in its own right in a most extraordinary way. Initially, there was little unusual aboard ship on the evening of December 31, 1899, the ship was mid-Pacific en route to Sydney and the navigator was observing the stars to calculate its precise position. As usual, he gave the results to the master, Captain John Phillips, but it was the first mate, Symons, who realized the significance of their position, LAT 00 31′ and LON 179 30′. They were just a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the IDL, presenting the chance to perform a rare nautical feat that would knock golden and even emerald shellbackery into a cocked hat.
Calling his officers together to check and double check the ship’s position, Phillips adjusted the Warrimoo’s position slightly to hit the precise spot, reduced engine speed and, aided by calm weather and clear skies, at midnight the ship lay precisely on the intersection of the Equator with the IDL.
The consequences were positively mind-blowing. Its bow was in the Southern Hemisphere and in the middle of summer, while its stern was in the Northern and in midwinter and, as it was straddling the IDL, it was also in the eastern and western hemispheres. The date at the rear of the ship was December 31, 1899 but at the front it was New Year’s Day, 1900. In other words, the Warrimoo was in two different days, two different months, two different years, two different seasons and two different centuries all at the same time. Just for good measure, it was also in all four hemispheres at once.
The $64,000 question, though, is whether the story is apocryphal. There is no doubt that the Warrimoo was in the area at the time, The Sydney Morning Herald reporting in January 1900 the arrival of the ship after setting out from Vancouver on December 15, 1899, albeit that the equator was crossed on December 30th and without any mention of when the IDL was crossed.
It was not until 1942 that a report emerged that the SS Warrimoo had crossed the equator and IDL on the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, 1899. An article in the Ottawa Journal reported that Captain Phillips, by then long retired and living in Sydney, had produced “the record of a remarkable achievement” after browsing through his old log books. However, there seems to be no other documentation to corroborate his claim.
Sceptics question whether with the navigational techniques used at the time Philips could have with absolute certainty have positioned the Warrimoo at the right place at the right time. And then there is the century question. The common scientific and historic consensus is that a century consists of 100 years and that as there was no year zero, the first century of the Christian Era ran from 1 to 100, the second century beginning in 101 and so on. Rather than entering a new century the bow of the Warrimoo was merely entering the final year of the 19th century.
The Golden Shellbacks show that crossing the equator at the IDL at sea is rare but not unusual and while passing from one month to another and from one year to the next at the same time is rarer still, the Warrimoo’s story loses even more of its sheen when it is stripped of its century straddling element. However, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
I have stood on the equator (allegedly) and crossed it many times but never the IDL. One for my bucket list!
