Oh, Ships! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Monkey Business

The appropriately named yacht "Monkey Business" was used by Senator Gary Hart during his campaign for the presidency of the United States. When the married Mr. Hart was spotted with model Donna Rice, photos of the two of them aboard the boat were all over the media. Consequently, Senator Hart from Colorado, who had run and lost in 1984, would no longer be a viable contender in the election of 1988.

Answer: Half Moon

The "Half Moon" (de "Halve Maen" in Dutch) sailed into what is now known as New York Harbor in September 1609. It was a three-masted wooden sailing vessel commissioned by the Dutch Republic to find an alternate route to China. In 1619, the original ship was destroyed in an English attack on Jakarta; a replica was made in the Netherlands and launched in 1909 (on the 300th anniversary), but it was destroyed by fire in Cohoes, New York in 1934.

A second replica was built in Albany, New York in 1989 and serves as a traveling museum, which, fittingly, sails in the Hudson River.

Answer: Merrimack

On March 9, 1862 the Battle of Hampton Roads was fought between the Monitor and the Merrimack, which had been rechristened as the C.S.S. Virginia. It was history's first duel of "ironclad warships" and resulted in the end of wooden navies and the beginning of a new type of naval warfare.

As for the other choices: the Hunley was a Confederate submarine - as dangerous to its crew as it was to the enemy; the Housatonic was actually the first ship to be sunk by a submarine, i.e., the Hunley; the U.S.S. Constitution, also called "Old Ironsides" was named by George Washington and launched in October of 1797.

Answer: Pueblo

The U.S.S. Pueblo was a naval intelligence ship ("spy ship") caught off North Korea's east coast in 1968 and unveiled by North Korea in Pyongyang on July 25, 2013 as propaganda for "Victory Day", celebrated on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War in 1953.

The Pueblo is the only commissioned US Navy vessel to be held by a foreign nation. The incorrect choices also did not fare well either: the Maine was blown up in Havana harbor during the Spanish-American War in 1898; the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior in 1975; the Cole was bombed in October 2000 in Yemen by suicide terrorists.

Answer: Ark Royal

Originally called the Ark Raleigh (the custom at the time), the Ark Royal was purchased by the Crown (Queen Elizabeth l) and became the flagship of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. The HMS Ark Royal had a long career until its sinking in 1636, although the name was revived in the 20th century for a sequence of four Royal Navy aircraft carriers.

The HMS Golden Hind was the flagship of Sir Francis Drake; the HMS Endeavour was commanded by Lieutenant James Cook; the HMS Beagle was used to transport Charles Darwin.

Answer: Pequod

"Moby-Dick" (also known as "The Whale") features the Pequod, a 19th century Nantucket whaleship, piloted by the obsessive Captain Ahab whose only mission in life seems to be revenge on the albino whale who destroyed his first ship and severed his leg.

The Pequod was named after the Native American Pequot tribe who inhabited a reservation in Connecticut. The Hispaniola is from "Treasure Island"; Pilar is the boat in Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea"; Tzimtzum is the cargo ship in "Life of Pi".

Answer: Voyager

The U.S.S. Voyager was smaller than the earlier Enterprise starships but technologically much more advanced, with the ability to land on a planet's surface and with an Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) used as the photonic doctor. All of the advancements came in handy when they were transported by aliens to the Delta Quadrant, but that's a story for another century...
The Enterprise was, of course, from "Star Trek" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation"; the Defiant was used in "Deep Space Nine", while the Nautilus was the vessel used in Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".

Answer: Caine

The USS Caine is an "obsolete warship converted from a World War One era destroyer". From Herman Wouk's 1951 novel, "The Caine Mutiny", it is based on Wouk's World War II experiences aboard the USS Zane. After Queeg has become the ship's captain, the officers under his command begin to feel he may be mentally unstable and see him as both tyrannical and incompetent. During a typhoon, one of the officers feels he must relieve the captain of his command in order to save the ship.

The officers are court-martialed and, as for the outcome...read the book or see the movie. (Bogart is remarkable!)

Answer: S.S. Minnow

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip" which left 7 stranded castaways on an uncharted desert isle. The tour ship, as heard in the rest of the song, was the S.S. Minnow. Although it is often assumed that the ship was named after the small bait fish, it was, in fact, named after the FCC Chairman, Newton Minow, who described TV as "a vast wasteland".

The show was, of course, "Gilligan's Island" (1964-1967) and although very popular at the time, in retrospect, Minow may have had a point!

Answer: Black Pearl

The pirate ship the Wicked Wench, which was captained by Jack Sparrow, sank under his command. Jack made a deal with Davy Jones to resurrect the ship and rechristened it the Black Pearl.