Puzzle: How did fleet avoid mine field? (1916)
Beware! How did fleet anchor to avoid mine field?
by Sam Loyd
The Puzzleland fleet of eight battleships steamed into port today and sought anchorage.
The port authorities pointed out a series of 64 mooring buoys arranged in square formation with eight on a side.
They gave the admiral a chart of buoys and told him he might moor his ships to them provided he placed them so that no two ships were in a straight line and no two in a diagonal line. To anchor in any other way, they said, would expose his ships to the peril of drifting onto the harbor mines.
It looked like a knotty problem, but the admiral was sailor enough to selve it before nightfall.
Can you moor the eight ships so no two are in a straight or diagonal line, using the dots on the diagram as buoys?
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Publication: The Day Book (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: June 21, 1916
