Is 1pm even different from 12pm? Apparently Ireland is the same time zone as England half the year, but an hour off the rest of the year. Haven't bothered to see whether this is in the right direction for the two to match.

Was there maybe no agreement here that the ships were following the same path? Perhaps spin-of-the-earth or something like that pulls the ships far enough apart that "encounter" would not apply. Or, perhaps, they follow EXACTLY the same path and there is only ONE encounter that is fatal to both ships.

I'll resolve N/A, I am told it is ambiguous. I will formulate the riddle again in a way i think is unambiguous and may ask again.

Is there a contradiction in the description?

@4fa i don't see how but i took this riddle from somewhere else and don't wanna modify it in case a part i'm misreading is the reason i disagree with others about the correct solution

my reading is that boats leave from both locations to the other location at noon everyday, except this one boat we're on that is leaving at 1pm, and the ones leaving from our location at noon will never encounter us so are irrelevant. but maybe i'm reading it wrong and that is the reason the solution is not what i think it is