Sailing Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hanno the Navigator

Hanno wrote down the account of his voyage, and this tablet was transcribed many times. Scientists from the 20th century have discovered many factual errors in the report, but they may have been inserted intentionally to keep the Carthaginian discoveries a secret. Hanno lived in the 6th or 5th century BC, possibly around the time of the Greek-Persian Wars. According to his report, he sailed with 60 ships and reached at the end of his journey a mountain where fierce hirsute people lived - Hanno called these "gorillas". Some scientists later identified this mountain as Mount Cameroon in the eponymous Central-African country. Around the same time as Hanno sailed south, a compatriot of his sailed north via the Portuguese and Spanish coasts up to the English Channel. This compatriot was Himilco.

Euthymenes of Massilia was a Greek explorer who, like Hanno, followed the African coast from Morocco southwards. Probably Euthymenes made it to the mouth of the river Senegal. Scylax started about 500 BC a sailing expedition of which the details are unclear. Probably he started on the Kabul river (nowadays Afghanistan), turned south at the Indus and then west across the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea.

Answer: Ingolfr Arnarson

Arnarson was apparently involved in a blood feud. So he and his family along with all their slaves boarded a ship and sailed west across the Atlantic, to an island discovered some fifty years before by the Faroese Naddod. Arnarson settled in the Bay of Reykjavik, and in his memory a statue was erected in the Reykjavik suburb Rivedal. According to the Landnamabok (an Icelandic text written down more than 100 years after the facts) Arnarson was the first permanent settler on Iceland, while previous Viking and Irish sailors just passed by.

Erik the Red (Erik Thorvaldsson, around 950-1003) was the first to settle on Greenland. Herjolfsson is believed the first European to set eyes to America, but did not land there: he was on his way to Greenland. Leif Eriksson, Erik's son, sailed from Greenland to North America and stayed several months in Vinland (possibly around the Gulf of Saint Lawrence). 

Answer: Wang Dayuan

Wang Dayuan was probably born in 1311 and died in 1350. He made two important voyages by sea: 1330-1334 and 1337-1339 (these are the dates commonly agreed upon by modern historians). He described hundreds of places he visited, and the details he recorded about some of these places were later confirmed by archaeological research - for instance the defensive line used by Singaporeans in 1330 against the invading Siamese.

Ibn Battuta (1304-1369) was born a Berber in Morocco. He made the Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca and then continued his journey. The farthest he was from his home, was in Zanzibar and Kilwa (both in Tanzania) as well as in Beijing (China). Odoric of Pordenone was Franciscan friar from the north of Italy. He travelled to Sumatra and China. Symon Semeonis was an Irish Franciscan friar. He travelled (mostly over land) from his home to Jerusalem, with a detour via Egypt.

Answer: Diogo Afonso

Diogo Afonso lived in Portugal in the fifteenth century (I did not find an exact date of birth nor an exact date of death). His first expedition was in 1444. He sailed from Portugal southwards along the African coast, and reached a great river (probably in Mauritania). In later expeditions he sailed to Mauritania and Senegal, and thenceforth to the west - where he discovered the Cape Verde archipelago. From 1462 until 1473 Afonso was the first governor of Cape Verde.

Hong Bao was a ship's captain in the fleet Zheng He accompanied in 1421 and in 1431. He visited Sumatra, Sri Lanka and Kolkata (India), possibly also Mecca (Saudi-Arabia) or Mogadishu (Somalia). John Cabot was born as Giovanni Caboto. He lived for a while in Venice but travelled to London. With the financial backing of several English noblemen, Cabot sailed westward and explored the coast of North America - from the Hudson Bay down to Florida. Nikitin was a Russian merchant. In 1466 he left his hometown Tver (northwest of Moscow) and ended his journey in India on the Deccan Plateau.

Answer: Ferdinand Magellan

Magellan was the chief commander of this expedition, but he died in 1521 on the Philippines. His task was to find a western route to the Spice Islands (among others the Moluccas, part of present-day Indonesia). The Portuguese controlled the seaways around Africa, and Magellan hoped to find another way to reach the profitable islands. Magellan's fleet (five ships, 270 crew members) started the voyage with a successful crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Sailing south along the Argentinian coast, Magellan finally found a route towards the Pacific Ocean. Crossing the Pacific led them to the Philippines, where Magellan was killed by the local inhabitants.

The remainder of the expedition reached the Molucca islands, and they decided to complete the voyage with two ships. The Trinidad (Magellan's flagship) would be refitted and return via the western route (around the Americas), while the Victoria would make its way via the eastern route (around Africa). The Trinidad eventually perished underway, and only the Victoria would reach Sevilla with 18 survivors: Juan Elcano as captain, de Huelva as able seaman and Pigafetta as supernumerary: he sailed on the ship but was not member of the crew.

Answer: Vasco Nunez de Balboa

Balboa (1475-1519) was born in Spain and sailed to the Caribbean in 1500, where he settled on the island Hispaniola. After having failed as pig farmer, Balboa accompanied an expedition to Panama, and made it to governor of the newly created province Veragua. When he heard that there was a rich kingdom to the west, he set out and found in 1513 the west coast of Panama - on the Pacific Ocean.

Cabeza de Vaca (about 1488 - about 1560) is known as the explorer of Florida and other states in the south of the present USA. Coronado (1510-1554) travelled from Mexico through Kansas to California. Cortes (1485-1547) subdued the Aztecs.

Answer: William Baffin

The Baffin Bay as well as Baffin Island were indeed named after Wiiliam Baffin. Baffin Island is the largest of the Canadian islands. Baffin Island is part of the Nunavut and has a south coast opposite the north coast of the province of Quebec. Baffin Bay lies north of Baffin Island and separates it from Greenland.
William Baffin (about 1584-1622) is mentioned for the first time in 1612, among an expedition sponsored by four London merchants. In 1616 he discovered the Baffin Bay and advanced in it quite far, for most of the time the icebergs and ice shelves make the Baffin Bay unnavigable. During his last years Baffin worked for the East India Company, mostly in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.

Atlasov (about 1661-1711) was one of the people responsible for systematic exploration of the Kamchatka peninsula. The uninhabited island Atlasov and the Atlasova volcano were named after him. Castensz was a Dutch sailor, who explored the coast of Papua New Guinea and Queensland (Australia) in 1623. Carstensz Pyramid, the highest peak of Indonesia, was named after him. Shosuke was a Japanese envoy to the Spanish settlements in California and Mexico. He may have sailed further to Spain itself, but that is conjecture.

Answer: Vitus Bering

Bering (1681-1741) was a Danish cartographer in Russian service. During two expeditions he travelled east from Arkhangel to Alaska, discovering the sea strait separating Asia and North America. This strait was named after Bering, as well as the land bridge located in that era up till about 9,000 BC. Bering also shares his name with a glacier in Alaska, an island before the southeast tip of Kamchatka, and the sea in which Bering Island is situated.

Fletcher Christian was the head of the mutiny on the Bounty. Christian and his fellow mutineers landed in Pitcairn Island. Jean-François de Galaup, comte de la Pérouse, (born 1741 - vanished at sea 1788) was commissioned for a French circumnavigation. He visited Chile, Hawaii, Alaska, California, Korea, Japan, Russia, Samoa, Tonga and Australia. When he set out for New Caledonia, he disappeared. Roggeveen (1659-1729) was sent in 1721 on a sailing expedition to locate Australia. But he failed to do so, instead discovering Easter Island (Rapa Nui).

Answer: Yes

Jules Verne had published "Le tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours" in 1873. In this novel, Phileas Fogg and his servant Passe-Partout left London and wagered that they would be back within 80 days.

According to the novel, they barely succeeded. But 16 years later, no one had made a voyage around the world within 80 days. Nellie Bly (born Elizabeth Seaman), a journalist at the "New York World", suggested trying it out. She departed in Hoboken, New Jersey, on November 14, 1889 traveling to the east. A rival newspaper, the "Cosmopolitan", sent out their journalist Elizabeth Bisland, to do the same in the opposite direction. Both ladies were due to be back in New York at the latest on February 3. Bly reached New York on January 25, 1890 and Bisland also arrived in time - on January 30, 1890.

Answer: Belgica

De Gerlache had bought a Norse whaling ship, made several modifications to it and renamed it the Belgica - after his home country. In 1897 de Gerlache and an international crew (including the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen) sailed on the Belgica towards Antarctica. At one point the Belgica was trapped in the ice in the Bellinghausen Sea. The crew had to survive a full winter in the Antarctic, but in January 1899 they noticed that clear water was only a little distance away. The crew managed somehow to dig locks towards the open water and so they escaped.

The Torrey Canyon was a tanker that sank in 1967 off the English coast near Cornwall. Amoco Cadiz was a super tanker that ran aground and sank near Bretagne, France in 1978. Exxon Valdez was a tanker that lost enormous amounts of oil in 1989 near Alaska.