Transatlantic Encounters (January 2025 Challenge Question)

There is no La Harve...Le Havre, yes....at 12:00 noon in Le Havre it's 6:00 am in New York...If the ship leaves NY at 12:00 noon there will be a difference of 6 hours between starting times...Since they are travelling at each other the speed will be doubled and the time to meet halved, if they would have left at the same moment that would be 3.5 days, but since the NY ship started 6 hours later, that is now 3 hrs earlier for the NY vessel and 3 hrs later for the Le Havre ship till meeting time occurs...The total trip takes 168 hours = 7 days and nights and the halfway point 84 hours - 3 hours for the NY ship to pass the first ship, or 81 hours, and a new ship passes every 12 hours until destination...so a total of 7 ships passed by the NY ship and 1 for the Le Havre ship...

Both the above answers are correct for their chosen scenario. The question as asked can be understood each way.

The "obvious" answer is 14, as 1 ship from the other side sails during each of the (24 h) days the trip takes. But it might be one more or less depending on precise timing, which I can't bothered to think through.

BTW Happy New Year!

Anywhere from 1 - 15 depending on what ship you are on...and how many ships are sailing from each port...

Hmmmm. I think 6.

So, I'm on the NY - La Havre service on the 1st April leaving at noon, NY time. As we sail East we pass, 4 hours into the journey at 16:00 Eastern, the La Lavre - NY service that left on March 26th. The next day we pass the one on the 27th, ditto 28th.... passing one a day until we reach La Havre 6 hours before the daily sailing to NY leaves at 12:00 CET.

Travel time between New York and Le Havre port in France by sea may take at least 20 days.. Which means that two ships traveling from opposite ports with 6 hour difference in leaving their respective departure points will only have a chance to encounter each other along their way will only be ONCE at sea.

Trick puzzle, impossible to answer.

1) It is isn't appropriate to assume the only ships on their path , during their journey, are from New York or La Harve. There could be numerous additional ships, with differing starting / ending locations they could be passing.

2) IF.. we ignore everything else, the ships traveling same routes in opposite directions would collide.

3) Why assume "your journey" will include any of these ships?

Poorly asked or intentionally misleading question.

Well what can you expect from a guy that couldn't calculate the dangers of not tipping your waiter....