Wrong sailing time by Port Authority

THE EDITOR: My family recently sailed from Trinidad to Tobago. Our scheduled departure was August 22 at 12.00 am. For anyone who knows anything, that means the midnight which ends Thursday 21 and begins Friday 22 i.e. Thursday night/Friday morning. Everyone knows that. It goes without saying. In fact I thought it was stupid and redundant to even call and clarify which day of the week the departure really was. It was understood. However on the insistence of a relative, we did just that. To our astonishment, we were informed by the representative at the Port Authority that there was no boat leaving on Thursday night, and that August 22 at 12 am actually meant midnight Friday (22) night/Saturday (23) morning.

Now there is no point debating whether 12.00 am begins the day or ends the day, it is a fact that the new day starts at 12 am. There is nothing to prove there, it’s a fact. It’s not a matter of opinion — “To me the day begins at 12:01 am”. Anyone with a digital watch could check and verify that as the clock strikes midnight, both the day of the week and the date change. And correctly so. But according to the good folk at the Port Authority, midnight on Thursday/Friday is still Thursday.

Now this is more than just a trivial point of debate, it greatly disrupted our vacation plans. And I can’t possibly imagine we were the only ones. I just have a few suggestions how the Port Authority could remove this ambiguity concerning departure times.
1. In addition to having the departure time printed on the ticket, also include the arrival time, just as in plane tickets. It helps people to logically assess the information therein.
2. No boat should leave anywhere at exactly midnight. Departure times should be 11.55 pm or 12.05 am. This of course assumes that they don’t think 12.05 is still the previous day.
3. Don’t hire stupid, dotish, people do perform jobs which involve interfacing with other people.

DENVER CHEDDIE
Rousillac