50 Fun Facts About Famous Ships

From which English port did the Titanic depart on her maiden voyage in April 1912?

She was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast and registered in Liverpool, but sailed from Southampton for New York. About 1,500 of the 2,208 aboard died.

Who led the Franco-American expedition that found the Titanic wreck on 1 September 1985?

Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel found the ship had split in two near the surface. Ballard went on to locate the Bismarck in 1989.

How many lifeboats did Board of Trade rules require for a ship of Titanic's size, 10,000 tonnes and up?

Titanic carried twenty, six more than the law demanded, yet her davits could have held 48. The rules had not kept up with ship sizes.

Which Cunard liner reached the Titanic's lifeboats two hours after she sank and rescued over 700 survivors?

Captain Arthur Rostron raced through the ice fields at full speed. Carpathia was herself sunk by a German U-boat in July 1918.

How long did the Lusitania take to sink after a German torpedo struck her off Ireland in May 1915?

Only six lifeboats got away and 1,198 people died, including 128 Americans, which hardened US opinion against Germany.

HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, holds what distinction today?

Floated out in 1765 and first commissioned in 1778, she has sat in dry dock at Portsmouth since 1922 and is the flagship of the First Sea Lord.

USS Constitution, launched in 1797, is the oldest naval vessel still doing what?

She is second only to HMS Victory in commission but, unlike Victory, remains in the water at Boston. Capturing HMS Guerriere in 1812 earned her the nickname Old Ironsides.

How many passengers did the Mayflower carry to America in 1620?

After ten weeks at sea she anchored near the tip of Cape Cod. Her companion ship Speedwell had turned back after springing leaks three times.

What agreement did the Pilgrims and 'strangers' sign aboard ship before going ashore in 1620?

It set up a rudimentary government binding Pilgrims and the non-Pilgrim 'strangers' alike. The ship itself was lost at sea on a later voyage in 1641.

Which naturalist sailed around the world on HMS Beagle's second voyage?

The recent graduate spent much of the 1831–36 voyage ashore studying geology and wildlife while Captain Robert FitzRoy surveyed coastlines.

HMS Endeavour carried James Cook to Tahiti to observe which event in 1769?

She had been launched in 1764 as a coal ship, the Earl of Pembroke. After Tahiti, Cook went on to chart New Zealand and Australia's east coast.

What cargo was HMS Bounty sent to the Pacific to collect before the 1789 mutiny?

The trees were meant to feed enslaved workers in the West Indies. Fletcher Christian's mutineers later burned the ship at Pitcairn Island in 1790.

Where did the Bounty mutineers burn the ship in 1790?

Bligh, cast adrift in an open boat, navigated some 3,600 nautical miles to Timor. Descendants of the mutineers still live on Pitcairn.

Which British warship did the Bismarck destroy in May 1941, triggering a massive Royal Navy pursuit?

A Swordfish biplane's torpedo then jammed Bismarck's rudder, and she was scuttled under British fire on 27 May. Her only operation had lasted eight days.

What kind of aircraft crippled the Bismarck's steering?

Fifteen of the obsolete open-cockpit biplanes flew off HMS Ark Royal; one hit rendered the steering gear inoperable.

Columbus's flagship Santa María met what fate in 1492?

She hit a sand bar near modern Cap-Haïtien on Christmas Day. Her timbers built the settlement of La Navidad; her original name was La Gallega.

What was the original name of Francis Drake's ship the Golden Hind?

He renamed her mid-voyage in 1578 after the crest of his patron Sir Christopher Hatton. She completed the circumnavigation in 1580.

How far into her maiden voyage did the Swedish warship Vasa sail before sinking in 1628?

Top-heavy and under-ballasted, she capsized in Stockholm harbour in a light gust. Raised in 1961 after 333 years, she is now Sweden's most visited museum.

Henry VIII's warship Mary Rose sank in 1545 in which strait?

She was leading an attack on French galleys off Spithead. The hull was raised on 11 October 1982 in one of history's most complex salvage operations.

In what year was the Mary Rose raised from the seabed?

The wreck had been located in 1971. Vasa came up in 1961; the two Tudor and Swedish hulls are the best-preserved warships of their eras.

The Cutty Sark is named after a character in which poet's work?

The witch Nannie in Tam o' Shanter wears only a 'cutty sark', a short shirt. Built in 1869, the clipper soon switched from tea to Australian wool.

Since 1954 the Cutty Sark has been displayed in dry dock in which part of London?

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the year she was built, handed the China tea route to steamships almost immediately.

Brunel's SS Great Britain of 1843 was the first big ocean-going ship to pair an iron hull with what?

She crossed the Atlantic in 14 days in 1845. Abandoned in the Falklands, she was towed home to Bristol in 1970.

How many passengers could Brunel's Great Eastern carry to Australia without refuelling?

Launched in 1858, she was by far the largest ship in the world; her passenger capacity was not surpassed until 1913. She ended up laying the transatlantic telegraph cable.

Shackleton's Endurance was crushed by pack ice and sank in which sea in November 1915?

All 28 men survived an epic escape via Elephant Island and South Georgia. The wreck was found in remarkable condition on 5 March 2022.

In which year was the wreck of Endurance finally discovered?

The Endurance22 team found her nearly 107 years after she sank, upright and with her name still legible on the stern.

Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 raft Kon-Tiki was built mainly from what?

Built in Peru to indigenous designs, it drifted 6,900 km in 101 days before hitting a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotus.

How many days did the Kon-Tiki voyage across the Pacific last?

Heyerdahl and five companions wanted to prove South Americans could have settled Polynesia. His book about it became a global bestseller.

The Japanese surrender ending World War II was signed on the deck of which US battleship?

The ceremony took place in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. 'Mighty Mo' is now a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, moored near the Arizona memorial.

How many officers and crew died when USS Arizona's magazine exploded at Pearl Harbor?

That was nearly half of all American deaths in the attack. The sunken hull still leaks oil beneath its memorial.

USS Monitor fought the Confederate ironclad Virginia to a stalemate at which 1862 battle?

It was the first clash between ironclad warships. Virginia had been built on the hull of the scuttled frigate Merrimack. Monitor's wreck was found in 1973.

HMS Dreadnought of 1906 is the only battleship confirmed to have sunk what?

She rammed the submarine U-29 in the Pentland Firth in March 1915, cutting it in two. The revolutionary all-big-gun ship never fired at an enemy battleship.

What did USS Nautilus, the pioneering nuclear-powered boat, achieve on 3 August 1958?

Launched in 1954 and sponsored by Mamie Eisenhower, she is now a museum at Groton, Connecticut, drawing about 250,000 visitors a year.

David Bushnell's one-man Turtle of 1775 was the earliest underwater craft to do what?

The one-man craft tried to attach explosives to British ships in New York harbour. Its pilot had only 20 minutes of air.

The brigantine Mary Celeste was found adrift and deserted in December 1872 near which islands?

The crew of the Dei Gratia found her seaworthy with cargo intact. Captain Briggs, his family and crew were never seen again.

The Italian liner Andrea Doria sank in 1956 after colliding with which Swedish ship off Nantucket?

In thick fog both ships had radar yet still met head-on. Remarkably, 1,660 of the 1,706 people aboard were rescued.

The Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a 1975 storm on which of the Great Lakes?

All 29 crew died. She was the largest ship on the lakes when launched in 1958 and remains the largest to have sunk there; Gordon Lightfoot's ballad made her famous.

Where did the Exxon Valdez run aground in Prince William Sound in March 1989?

Captain Joseph Hazelwood was bound for Long Beach. The spill was the second largest in US history until Deepwater Horizon.

For how many days did the container ship Ever Given block the Suez Canal in March 2021?

She wedged diagonally across the canal en route from Malaysia to Rotterdam. Egypt then impounded her over a reported $916 million claim.

Which line operates Icon of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship when it debuted in 2024?

Built by Meyer Turku in Finland, she began sailing from Miami on 27 January 2024.

Seawise Giant, the longest self-propelled ship ever built, was what type of vessel?

Renamed Happy Giant, Jahre Viking, Knock Nevis and Mont over her life, she was beached at Alang, India, and scrapped in 2010.

Which intelligence service bombed Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour in 1985?

Photographer Fernando Pereira was killed. The ship had been campaigning against French nuclear tests and had just evacuated Rongelap Atoll's residents.

Jacques Cousteau's research ship Calypso began life as what?

Launched in 1942 and commissioned as HMS J-826, she served in the Mediterranean before her conversion. She was badly damaged in 1996.

Where is the retired liner RMS Queen Mary now moored as a hotel and museum?

She sailed the North Atlantic for Cunard from 1936 to 1967 and held the Blue Riband speed record from 1938 to 1952.

Queen Mary 2 holds what distinction among ships in active service?

Cunard's flagship since 2004, she still makes regular Southampton–New York crossings. She was built in France by Chantiers de l'Atlantique.

The Empire Windrush's famous 1948 voyage docked at which port near London?

She carried 1,027 passengers plus two stowaways from the Caribbean and became a symbol of post-war migration. She had been launched in Germany as the Monte Rosa.

Which ship is permanently moored on the Thames as a museum run by the Imperial War Museum?

The cruiser helped sink the Scharnhorst and bombarded the D-Day beaches. She drew more than 200,000 visitors in 2025.

The Costa Concordia struck a rock and capsized off which Italian island in January 2012?

Thirty-two of the 4,252 people aboard died. Captain Francesco Schettino was convicted of manslaughter and abandoning ship and jailed for 16 years.

Ken Warby's Spirit of Australia set the still-unbeaten water speed record in 1978 on what?

The wooden jet boat, built in a Sydney backyard, hit 511 km/h. Nobody has officially beaten it in almost half a century.

Before naming, Harland and Wolff called Titanic's sister Olympic by what yard designation?

Titanic herself was yard number 401. The third Olympic-class sister, Britannic, was sunk by a mine in 1916 while serving as a hospital ship.