If It Fits, It Ships Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Santa Maria

The Santa Maria was the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships. This style of Portuguese sailing ship was known as a 'carrack'. This design of one deck and three masts was considered a superior design at the time and proved to be a stable style that distributed cargo weight very well.

She sank off the island of Haiti on December 24, 1492 after the drunken crew passed out and she ran aground without any loss of life. Some of the wood from this ship was salvaged and used to make a fort called La Navidad on Haiti.

The anchor of the Santa Maria was recovered and is on display at the Musee du Panteon National in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Answer: H.L. Hunley

The H.L. Hunley was launched in 1863. During a training exercise she sank killing the five crew members who were aboard. She was subsequently raised and two months later sank again killing the eight-man crew. While it might seem surprising, the government raised her again.

After some minor repairs, Hunley attacked and sunk the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor. Shortly thereafter, she sank again, once more killing the entire eight-man crew. Rediscovered in 1995, she was raised to the surface yet again and is now on display at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in Charleston, South Carolina.

While the reason for her final sinking is still debated, one of the most popular theories is that her torpedo which was aimed at the Housatonic exploded prematurely causing the sinking of both vessels.

Answer: She ran aground in 1921, and the crew was never found

The mystery of the Carroll A. Deering is one of the most famous stories in maritime history. She was found wrecked off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in February of 1921. There was no crew aboard, the ship appeared to be seaworthy, and there was food out in the kitchen that looked as if it was being prepared at the time the crew "abandoned" ship.

The Deering had just come through the mysterious Bermuda Triangle and this photo of the ship was taken just three days before she was found wrecked with no crew.

The ship was scuttled a month later as it was a danger to other ships. Not a single member of the crew was ever found and the ship's navigation devices had also disappeared. Was this piracy, mutiny, or the effects of the mysterious Bermuda triangle? We will probably never know for sure.

Answer: USS Missouri

After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese government realized that they had been beaten. In the presence of high ranking military officials from all the Allied Powers, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed the surrender aboard the American battleship, the USS Missouri.

This powerful battleship fought in both World War II and in the Korean War. In 1984 she was reactivated and modernized after which she participated in Operation Desert Storm. Today, she is a maritime museum at the historic Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Answer: HMS Victory

HMS Victory was a large powerful ship that required a crew of over 800 men. This three-masted behemoth was launched in 1765 and was still "in service" at the turn of the 21st century. Armed with over 100 guns, she was classified as a first-rate ship of the line and participated in numerous battles with great distinction.

In 2012 she was declared the flagship of the First Sea Lord, at which time she was the world's oldest naval ship still in commission. The Victory is an icon of the British Navy and a much-loved symbol of its steadfastness in time of war.

Answer: The Halifax Explosion

In 1917, the French cargo ship Mont-Blanc was heavily loaded with wartime explosives when she sailed into the Halifax Harbor in Nova Scotia, Canada, only to collide with the Norwegian ship, the SS Imo, and catch fire. Approximately 20 minutes later a huge explosion took place that destroyed large parts of the city of Halifax. Over 2,000 people were killed both on water and on land, and another 9,000 were injured by flying debris, fire, and the collapse of many buildings.

The Monte-Blanc disintegrated into pieces and the SS Imo caught fire and can be seen in this picture as the hollow shell she became after running aground.

The explosion caused by the collision of these two ships caused nearly every building within a half-mile radius to be completely destroyed.

This was one of the largest man-made explosions to have ever occurred. The fact that the SS Imo survived, even as a shell, is amazing.

Answer: HMS Hood

During the horrific maritime battle known as the Battle of Denmark Strait in 1941, the German battleship Bismarck is credited with sinking HMS Hood. What actually happened is a matter of historical debate, but what is known is that HMS Hood sank with 1,418 men aboard, and only three survived.

The Bismarck was pursued by the British Navy and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean a few days later. Over 2,000 German sailors died when this ship was torpedoed. These two warships were some of the most sophisticated of their times.

But when a ship sinks, the water has no mercy.

Answer: Lake Superior

The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in a storm on Lake Superior remains one of the most mysterious and controversial shipwrecks of the notoriously dangerous Great Lakes region. After the ship went down with all hands, it took four dives to the ship to recover the bell in 1995.

This type of ship is known as a freighter, and when launched in 1958, the Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes. All 29 members of her crew were lost when she sank near Whitefish Bay during a tremendous storm.

She was forever memorialized by Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot a few months after she sank when he released his song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". There is much debate as to why the ship sank and we will probably never know for sure.

Answer: True

This dramatic photo shows the sinking of Titanic's sister ship HMHS Britannic in the Aegean Sea in 1916. This Olympic-class ocean liner was launched in 1914 and sank only two years later. There were over 1,000 people on board when the ship sank, but only 30 died.

At the time of its sinking, it was being used as a hospital ship. There is some debate as to whether she was hit by a mine or sunk by a torpedo. What is known, is that after the explosion, the ship sank in 55 minutes and many lives were saved by lessons learned during the sinking of her sister ship the Titanic.

Answer: False

When launched in 1940, the Yamato was the largest and heaviest armed battleship ever built. She was sunk in 1945 after being bombed and torpedoed repeatedly. Most of her crew was lost, either in violent explosion of the many arms on board or were drowned.

This ship, although powerfully armed, was not a match for the Allied forces. The location of the wreckage was not discovered until 1984 under 1,120 ft. (340m) of water. The ship had broken into two pieces and was heavily damaged.