> The Morning Midas had departed Yantai, China on May 26 and was heading to Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico
What is it doing 300 miles south of Adak, Alaska? (Yes I understand the curvature of the earth vs map projections causes the shortest route to appear to be a curve rather than a straight line). This should be passing within a few hundred miles of Hawaii, not Alaska, right?
Are these things incapable of sailing in open ocean? Do they always stay within a few days sail of land?
It's hard to have a good intuition for great circle routes. The shortest path between those cities does in fact go all the way up to Alaska, crossing through the Aleutians:
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=YNT-LZC
Adak is about as far south as the Aleutians get, so it makes sense that the ship would have passed (relatively) near there.
This counterintuitive bit of geography is why Anchorage has one of the busiest cargo airports in the world, despite its small population.
Nice website! Thanks!
I found that the ship went through the Tsugaru Strait, so this is the appropriate great circle: