Ships

[rookie1ja]

Ships - Back to the Einstein's Riddles

There are 5 ships in a port.

1. The Greek ship leaves at six and carries coffee.

2. The ship in the middle has a black chimney.

3. The English ship leaves at nine.

4. The French ship with a blue chimney is to the left of a ship that carries coffee.

5. To the right of the ship carrying cocoa is a ship going to Marseille.

6. The Brazilian ship is heading for Manila.

7. Next to the ship carrying rice is a ship with a green chimney.

8. A ship going to Genoa leaves at five.

9. The Spanish ship leaves at seven and is to the right of the ship going to Marseille.

10. The ship with a red chimney goes to Hamburg.

11. Next to the ship leaving at seven is a ship with a white chimney.

12. The ship on the border carries corn.

13. The ship with a black chimney leaves at eight.

14. The ship carrying corn is anchored next to the ship carrying rice.

15. The ship to Hamburg leaves at six.

Which ship goes to Port Said? Which ship carries tea?

This old topic is locked since it was answered many times. You can check solution in the Spoiler below.

Pls visit New Puzzles section to see always fresh brain teasers.

Ships - solution

Spanish ship goes to Port Said and French ship carries tea. However, tea can be carried by the Brazilian ship, too, if you understood position ‘to the right’ as anywhere on the right side from the given point (not only right next to).

[Guest]

I did it! I did it! Yippee!! Hey, I'm not a megabrain like some of you, so I'm happy!!

[Guest]

I've found an alternative way of solving this puzzle, which may not work for all puzzles of this type. I just looked for lines that had common factors, and combined these lines to a longer one containing all the factors or the short lines it was made from.

For example: lines 1 and 15 both speak of a ship leaving at 6. Combining them, I could say: The Greek ship carries coffee for Hamburg and leaves at 6. Having made this combined sentence, I can now delete lines 1 and 15, and my information has become more compact without losing accuracy

I kept this going until I was left with only five sentences each carrying all the available information on one ship. The information implied in the questions was then easily added in to complete the two not-yet-complete lines.

It's a nice one... It kept me busy for an hour or two.

BoilingOil

[Guest]

hmmmmmm this is one of the longest one i have can u plz rephrase it lol.

[Guest]

I did it! I did it! Yippee!! Hey, I'm not a megabrain like some of you, so I'm happy!!

No u didnt why dont ya post the answer huh.huh.huh!??!?!??!?!?? <_<

[Guest]

That was a tough one! I tried to do it in my head, but gave up and did it on paper... I ended up guessing that the French had the tea though... it was between them and Brazil! I got everything right pretty much though!

Took about an hour to do.

[Guest]

Well, I have two answers

What I think Einstein's *REAL* answer would be:

Technically, I think the answer is "we don't know". Nothing in the clues says "Said" or "Tea", so the french ship could be carrying tobacco, and the Spanish ship could be going to India...we just don't know.

And if I took everything at face value:

since i really like doing these puzzles, I went ahead and figured it out even though the real answer is quick and boring. It took about 15 minutes to get French = Tea & Spanish = Said (like everyone else got).

I did this by making a table, and putting the positions at the top (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, assuming 5 was the border). Then down the left side i put the categories (Nationality, time, color, load, destination). In each square, I put a tiny initial of each possibility (ie, in each square on the time row i wrote "5 6 7 8 9") and left a large blank space to put the final answer.

I then followed the clues, starting with the most obvious: Black is in the 3rd port. Once you know that black = 3rd, then you cross out black from all other ports. Continue following the clues, crossing out the information you know can't be true in each port.

It's important to consider relative position..ie, if 7pm is to the right of White, then you know that 7pm can't be to the right of any other color, so since black is in 3rd, 7pm can't be in 4th and you cross it out. Also, 7pm can't be in 1st, cause nothing is on it's left. You also know that 7pm and white can't be together, so you can make a little note to the side about that.

Eventually, all options will be crossed out but one, and you can deduce that one to be true.

That might be the obvious method to most, but thought I'd share for those who haven't thought of it.

I completely applaud those who said they did in their heads!

[Guest]

i got my own method,juz simply put all the clues roughly,theres no need to arrange anything at all, as an example

French Blue

Greek 6.00 coffee Hamburg Red

5.00 Genoa

Brazil Manila

and so on,

after using almost all the clues, except certain clue that determined the position of the ships, for that clue, put it into the table of 5x5 table

5 row and 5 column,after that u can see its quite easy to solve, at this point, the only thing u need to do is simply find the correct place to placing all the clues given, well this is my method and i solve it in roughly 10 minutes

[Guest]

Haha. This is one was loooooooong....took me a while....

But, I still didnt figure it out....lol

Anyway, I love Einsteins riddles!

[Guest]

ok, so I figured it out :D :D , and the Spanish ship goes to Port Said, and the French ship carries Tea!!!!!!!!!! I am so good!

[Guest]

Oh this was fun! Took me around 30 mins and required me to use paper but was brilliant! Got it right too even though I confused the English and the Spanish chimneys ( It wasn't needed anyways considering I found out the pisition of the ships before the final colours)

I got it right though, well assuming that one ship was carrying tea and one was going to Port Said.

With enough time and a pad of paper anyone can do this, but don't give up if you havn't done it yet!! A thing I found helpful was drawing out 5 ships and filling in info that way, like colouring the chimneys or whatever. Work it out systematically and the sense of achievment is great!!

[Guest]

While working through the clues I have found that some are not necessary and some need rephrasing. So I would rewrite the puzzle as follows:

There are 5 ships in a port.

1. The Greek ship carries coffee.

2. The ship in the middle has a black chimney.

3. The English ship leaves at nine.

4. The French ship with a blue chimney is to the left of a ship that carries coffee.

5. To the immediate right of the ship carrying cocoa is a ship going to Marseille.

6. The Brazilian ship is heading for Manila.

7. Next to the ship carrying rice is a ship with a green chimney.

8. A ship going to Genoa leaves at five.

9. The Spanish ship leaves at seven and is to the right of the ship going to Marseille.

10. The ship with a red chimney goes to Hamburg.

11. The ship leaving at seven does not have a white chimney.

12. The ship that carries corn is at one end of the line of ships.

13. The ship with a black chimney leaves at eight.

14. The ship carrying corn is anchored next to the ship carrying rice.

15. The ship to Hamburg leaves at six.

Which ship goes to Port Said? Which ship carries tea?

For explanation - in clue 1 you don't need to state that the Greek ship leaves at six, as this can be deduced from the other clues. Clue 5 should include the word immediate so there is no ambiguity. Clue 11 doesn't need to state that the ship leaving at seven is next to the one with the white chimney (this will be deduced), just that it doesn't have a white chimney. Clue 12 rephrased to make it more understandable.

[Guest]

One overlooked possibility. Do you really think the English ship wasn't carrying tea? I mean really...

[Guest]

This one is quite easier than Neighbours.

Edited November 12, 2008 by Svetka-Konfetka

[Guest]

I figured it out good one took me about half an hour

and no the English ship wasn't carrying tea the colonists already dumped it overboard

Edited November 1, 2009 by ZAnDER

[Guest]

Ships - Back to the Einstein's Riddles

There are 5 ships in a port.

1. The Greek ship leaves at six and carries coffee.

2. The ship in the middle has a black chimney.

3. The English ship leaves at nine.

4. The French ship with a blue chimney is to the left of a ship that carries coffee.

5. To the right of the ship carrying cocoa is a ship going to Marseille.

6. The Brazilian ship is heading for Manila.

7. Next to the ship carrying rice is a ship with a green chimney.

8. A ship going to Genoa leaves at five.

9. The Spanish ship leaves at seven and is to the right of the ship going to Marseille.

10. The ship with a red chimney goes to Hamburg.

11. Next to the ship leaving at seven is a ship with a white chimney.

12. The ship on the border carries corn.

13. The ship with a black chimney leaves at eight.

14. The ship carrying corn is anchored next to the ship carrying rice.

15. The ship to Hamburg leaves at six.

Which ship goes to Port Said? Which ship carries tea?

Ships - solution

Spanish ship goes to Port Said and French ship carries tea. However, tea can be carried by the Brazilian ship, too, if you understood position ‘to the right’ as anywhere on the right side from the given point (not only right next to).

5. To the right of the ship carrying cocoa is a ship going to Marseille.

If the ship carrying Cocoa is The Brazilian ship, the ship going to Marseille it is not to the right, but to the left. As the French ship is to the right of the Brazilian ship and not the Spanish ship, which is the one going to Marseille.