Lost At Sea Quiz | Maritime

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. It's perhaps the most famous maritime mystery of all. Theories abound about what became of the crew of the 'Mary Celeste' before she was discovered abandoned in the North Atlantic in 1872, however what eventually became of the vessel?

Answer: She ran aground on a reef off Haiti.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Mary Celeste had a chequered career after 1872, changing hands some 17 times. In January 1885, she ran aground on Rosekell's Reef. No one was hurt, but her cargo was found to be grossly over-insured and the master and shippers were indicted on a charge of barratry.

2. Showing remarkable parallels with the mysterious abandonment of the Mary Celeste, this vessel was discovered aground off the coast of North Carolina in 1920 with no sign of the crew and the only life on board being two cats. What was her name?

Answer: The Carroll A. Deering

The Carroll A. Deering was a five-masted schooner and been sighted in apparently good order by the Cape Lookout lightship three days before she was found abandoned. When boarded, signs of a meal in preparation were found, but much of the crew's clothing, as well as the captain's trunk, were missing. Rumours abounded as to her fate.

Some claimed piracy; some said she had been seized by Bolshevik agents. Whatever did happen has never been satisfactorily explained.

3. Disasters at sea: Which of these ships sank with the greatest loss of life?

Answer: The Wilhelm Gustloff

The Titanic struck an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage in April 1912 with the loss of 1,503 lives. The Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a U-Boat in 1915 with the loss of 1,198 lives. The Lancastria was sunk while evacuating troops and refugees from St Nazaire in June 1940 with the loss of 3,000 lives. Estimates of the number of people who died when the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a Russian submarine in January 1945 vary from around 7,000 to more than 9,000. Most of those who died were civilians being evacuated from Poland. About 1,000 people survived what was probably the biggest single disaster of all.

4. In the spring of 1918, the U.S. Navy suffered its largest single loss of life of WWI with the disappearance of a 10,000-ton fleet collier in the Caribbean. What was the name of the ship that shared a name with a figure from mythology?

Answer: USS Cyclops

The USS Cyclops had 304 men on board when she set out from Bridgetown, Barbados, on March 4, 1918, bound for the Delaware River. A day later she exchanged radio messages with another vessel, but was never seen nor heard from again. Mystery surrounded her disappearance: was she torpedoed by the Germans?; did the German-born captain decide to change sides and sail with the cargo to Europe?; was she sunk by a huge storm? No one knows.

5. Many ships have been lost to storms, but in 1782, one of the proudest ships in the Royal Navy sank in flat-calm waters while riding at anchor at Spithead. What was the name of the doomed ship that had been named after a British king?

Answer: HMS Royal George

The Royal George was a 100-gun ship-of-the-line and was completed in 1756. At that time she was the first man-o-war to exceed 2,000 tons. On August 29 1782, she was at anchor and due to sail for Gibraltar within days. Final running repairs were taking place on a water inlet pipe and this involved heeling the ship over at an angle with guns run out to port. No one initially seemed alarmed as water started to come in by the lower gun ports and when lower ranks became worried, the officers dismissed their fears.

By the time the true situation had struck home, it was too late and the Royal George sank within 20 minutes - in full view of most of the fleet. A court-martial, though, cleared everyone of negligence, ruling that timber decay caused the bottom to fall out of the ship.

6. "Women and children first" is the perceived priority when a ship starts to sink, but tragically, although 43 people survived the sinking of a ferry between Northern Ireland and Scotland in 1953, not a single woman or child was among them. With which of these royal princesses did she share a name?

Answer: Princess Victoria

The Princess Victoria was a passenger/vehicle ferry with doors at the stern so that vehicles could drive on and off. She could carry more than 1,500 passengers, but just 125 passengers and 49 crew were on board on January 31, 1953, when she set sail for Ulster.

In one of the fiercest storms in living memory, the stern doors were forced open by the following seas. The women and children were first aboard a lifeboat, but, tragically, it collapsed.

7. December 13, 2007, marked the 100th anniversary of what is regarded as the world's first major oil spill. The vessel involved was the Thomas W. Lawson, but where in UK waters did she run aground?

Answer: The Isles of Scilly

The Thomas W. Lawson - then the world's largest sailing ship - was on a voyage from Pennsylvania to London with 2.5m gallons of paraffin oil on board when she struck rocks during a storm on Friday, December 13, 1907. Sources differ on the loss of life, some say 15 and others 16 of the 18 crew died.

8. Mishaps at sea: With what did the liner Olympic collide in May 1934?

Answer: A lightship

The Nantucket Light Vessel guarded the approaches to New York harbour and was located at busy junction of sealanes. The light vessel sank after the collision. Seven of her crew died. Olympic was a sister ship to the Titanic and Britannic.

9. "Your country needs you" was the tone of a familiar British recruiting poster during WWI, complete with the pointing finger and dramatic moustachioed image of Lord Kitchener. He was to die in in a naval disaster, but what was the name of the ship he was on?

Answer: HMS Hampshire

Horatio Herbert was appointed Minister of War in 1914. He realised that the war would not be won by Christmas, as some predicted, but that it would be a long haul and a larger army would be needed. His was the face on the recruiting posters. In June 1916, he set out aboard the cruiser Hampshire to sail to Russia to meet the tsar, but she struck a mine during a storm off the coast of Scotland and sank. Only 12 men survived. Kitchener's body was never found.

10. "There's wild-eyed boy in the radio shack - he's the last remaining guest He's tapping in a Morse code frenzy - please God, SOS" These lines from the song 'Dance Band On the Titanic' by Harry Chapin are basically accurate, (allowing for some artistic licence). However, in 1912, British ships had not generally adopted SOS as a distress signal. What distress signal did they use?

Answer: CQD

For many years following the introduction of wireless telegraphy, CQD was the standard distress signal. However, in 1906, the German variant SOS began to gather currency and in 1908 it was supposedly made the international standard. British ships continued to use CQD. On the night of April 14/15 1912, when the Titanic struck an iceberg, two radio officers were on duty. Only one of them survived and he later said that initially CDQ had been sent, but they then tried SOS and after that CQD and SOS were mixed. See: titanic.gov.ns.ca/wireless.html Contrary to some sources, Titanic was not the first ship to send SOS in an emergency.

Source: Author darksplash

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor trident before going online.
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Lost At Sea Trivia Quiz

Disasters and mysteries of the seven seas.

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