15 Question World Quiz: Name That Ship | Transport

Answer: RMS Titanic

Of the Titanic's 2,223 passengers and crew, only 706 survived (less than a third). Contrary to popular belief, the ship had never been referred to as 'unsinkable' until after it sank, but it did have too few lifeboats to save all those on board (the Titanic's lifeboats had a capacity of 1,178 whilst the ship was designed to carry about 3,600).

Answer: Golden Hind

The Pelican was Sir Francis Drake's flagship that he renamed the Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton during his circumnavigation of the globe (Sir Christopher's coat of arms contained a hind). During the voyage he was encouraged to cause maximum damage to the Spanish and he returned to England laden with treasure.

He went on to help defeat the Spanish Armada and is remembered in England as a hero, but as a pirate in Spain.

Answer: HMS Victory

Launched in 1765, HMS Victory was already 40 years old by the time she fought at the Battle of Trafalgar. She is still commissioned as the flagship of the Second Sea Lord and as such is the oldest commissioned warship in the world.

HMS Victory is open to the public and can be found in a drydock in Portsmouth.

Answer: Mary Celeste

The Mary Celeste's crew were never found. There are many theories as to what happened to the crew, but tales that the food was still warm are not true - the last entry in the ship's log were 11 days old by the time the ship was found. (Note: The Mary Celeste was an American ship when the crew went missing, but was originally British).

The Flying Dutchman is a mythical ship condemned never to make port, and the Black Pearl is from "Pirates of the Caribbean." The Queen Anne's Revenge was Blackbeard's flagship, until he ran her aground.

Answer: Ark Royal

Originally ordered by Sir Walter Raleigh and named the Ark Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I bought the ship and it was renamed the Ark Royal. The attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588 saw Ark Royal's first action as flagship of Lord High Admiral Howard. It was later renamed Anne Royal and continued serving in the Navy Royal until it sank in 1636.

Originally destined to be the HMS Indomitable, HMS Ark Royal was renamed following public reaction to the decommissioning of the last HMS Ark Royal and is the 5th Royal Navy ship to bear the name. It has seen action in the Bosnian War and the Iraq War and was decommissioned in March 2011 following the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Answer: Mary Rose

The Royal Navy traces its beginnings to the reign of Henry VIII, when it was called the Navy Royal. The Mary Rose sank whilst fighting the French in the Solent and, although the precise reasons are not certain, it was probably caused by heavy seas which flooded through the open gun ports.

Answer: Cutty Sark

The Cutty Sark is one of only three remaining original clippers that survive today. Built specifically to outsail the Thermolpylae, she was launched in 1869. They raced from China to London in 1872, but the Cutty Sark lost her rudder, although she still continued and arrived just a week after the Thermopylae.

She went on to beat Thermopylae in the wool race (between Australia and England) several times, breaking records before eventually sail was superseded by steam. She was badly damaged by a fire in 2007 but will hopefully be open to the public again.

Answer: HMY Britannia

During her career, Britannia travelled more than 2,000,000 kilometres. It was designed to be converted into a hospital ship in time of war, but this fortunately never happened, although it was used to evacuate refugees from the civil war in Aden in 1986. She is now moored at the Port of Leith, Edinburgh and is open to the public.

Answer: HMS Dreadnought

HMS Dreadnought featured an all big-gun armament, steam turbine propulsion and armour. The Anglo-German naval arms race caused tensions between the two countries in the lead up to the First World War. During the war, HMS Dreadnought missed the only full-scale naval battle, the Battle of Jutland, but was the only battleship to sink a submarine when she rammed SM U-29 in 1915.

She was sold for scrap just 15 years after coming into service.

Answer: HMS Endeavour

Leaving Plymouth in 1768, the Endeavour was tasked with exploring the seas in search of uncharted land, and reached New Zealand in 1769 (the second European ship to do so after Abel Tasman in 1642). The following year the Endeavour was the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia when Cook went ashore at Botany Bay.

She ended up being scuttled in 1778, during the American War of Independence.

Answer: RMS Lusitania

Despite the German Embassy warning American citizens not to travel on ships such as the Lusitania, the sinking of the ship turned public opinion against the Germans in many countries and was criticised by Germany's allies, Austria and Turkey. The German government insisted they were right to sink the Lusitania as it was armed and carrying a large amount of war supplies (in fact it had no guns, but did have some ammunition on board), but the British used the event as a propaganda coup that would eventually persuade the USA to join the war.

Answer: HMS Beagle

Just a couple of months after her launch the Beagle took part in a Royal Navy fleet review, during which she sailed under the old London Bridge. She was adapted as a survey vessel and on her second voyage was home to Charles Darwin. The expedition was planned to take two years, but ended up taking five, after which Darwin wrote "Journal and Remarks", in which he first theorises about evolution through natural selection.

Answer: Bounty

The Bounty (also referred to as HMS Bounty or HMAV Bounty) is the scene of the most famous mutiny in history. The reasons for the mutiny are still unclear, as William Bligh was a relatively fair and intelligent officer, but the mutineers put Bligh and his supporters into a launch and sailed to Pitcairn (via Tahiti) where they decided to settle. They burnt the Bounty to avoid detection by the Royal Navy and to prevent the settlers leaving the island.

William Bligh meanwhile took his launch 6,700km without charts or a compass, escaping cannibals in Fiji before eventually arriving in Timor. He was honourably acquitted at the court martial and went on to serve as a Captain under Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen, a Governor of New South Wales and rose to the rank of Vice Admiral of the Blue.

Answer: HMS Conqueror

The Conqueror sank the ARA General Belgrano on the 2nd May 1982 with the loss of 323. The action was controversial at the time because the General Belgrano was outside the 200 mile exclusion zone and Argentinian casualties were thought to be far higher. However, there is little doubt that it was a legitimate act of war, with the only critics being anti-war campaigners.

Answer: Mayflower

The Mayflower was originally destined for what is now New York, but strayed off course due to bad weather and sheltered in Cape Cod Bay for the winter. The surviving passengers went ashore in the spring of 1621 and founded Plymouth.