50 free Famous Ships trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Some ships outlive their voyages. The Titanic is still the most famous wreck on Earth, HMS Victory has been in commission for over 240 years, and a container ship called Ever Given stopped 12 percent of world trade for six days by getting stuck sideways. These ship trivia questions and answers cover the liners, warships, explorers' vessels and infamous wrecks of maritime history: Columbus's Santa María, Drake's Golden Hind, Darwin's Beagle, the Bounty and the Mary Celeste, Bismarck and USS Missouri, Vasa, Endurance, Kon-Tiki and the modern giants. Every answer is sourced and explained.
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Q 01From which English port did the Titanic depart on her maiden voyage in April 1912?
Southampton
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.
Q 02Who led the Franco-American expedition that found the Titanic wreck on 1 September 1985?
Robert Ballard
Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel found the ship had split in two near the surface. Ballard went on to locate the Bismarck in 1989.
Q 03How many lifeboats did Board of Trade rules require for a ship of Titanic's size, 10,000 tonnes and up?
Fourteen
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.
Q 04Which Cunard liner reached the Titanic's lifeboats two hours after she sank and rescued over 700 survivors?
Carpathia
Captain Arthur Rostron raced through the ice fields at full speed. Carpathia was herself sunk by a German U-boat in July 1918.
Q 05How long did the Lusitania take to sink after a German torpedo struck her off Ireland in May 1915?
About 18 minutes
Only six lifeboats got away and 1,198 people died, including 128 Americans, which hardened US opinion against Germany.
Q 06HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, holds what distinction today?
Oldest naval vessel still in commission
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.
Q 07USS Constitution, launched in 1797, is the oldest naval vessel still doing what?
Afloat
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.
Q 08How many passengers did the Mayflower carry to America in 1620?
102
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.
Q 09What agreement did the Pilgrims and 'strangers' sign aboard ship before going ashore in 1620?
The Mayflower Compact
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.
Q 10Which naturalist sailed around the world on HMS Beagle's second voyage?
Charles Darwin
The recent graduate spent much of the 1831–36 voyage ashore studying geology and wildlife while Captain Robert FitzRoy surveyed coastlines.
Q 11HMS Endeavour carried James Cook to Tahiti to observe which event in 1769?
The transit of Venus
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.
Q 12What cargo was HMS Bounty sent to the Pacific to collect before the 1789 mutiny?
Breadfruit plants
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.
Q 13Where did the Bounty mutineers burn the ship in 1790?
Pitcairn Island
Q 21The Cutty Sark is named after a character in which poet's work?
Robert Burns
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.
Q 22Since 1954 the Cutty Sark has been displayed in dry dock in which part of London?
Greenwich
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the year she was built, handed the China tea route to steamships almost immediately.
Q 23Brunel's SS Great Britain of 1843 was the first big ocean-going ship to pair an iron hull with what?
A screw propeller
She crossed the Atlantic in 14 days in 1845. Abandoned in the Falklands, she was towed home to Bristol in 1970.
Bligh, cast adrift in an open boat, navigated some 3,600 nautical miles to Timor. Descendants of the mutineers still live on Pitcairn.
Q 14Which British warship did the Bismarck destroy in May 1941, triggering a massive Royal Navy pursuit?
HMS Hood
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.
Q 15What kind of aircraft crippled the Bismarck's steering?
Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers
Fifteen of the obsolete open-cockpit biplanes flew off HMS Ark Royal; one hit rendered the steering gear inoperable.
Q 16Columbus's flagship Santa María met what fate in 1492?
Ran aground off Hispaniola
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.
Q 17What was the original name of Francis Drake's ship the Golden Hind?
Pelican
He renamed her mid-voyage in 1578 after the crest of his patron Sir Christopher Hatton. She completed the circumnavigation in 1580.
Q 18How far into her maiden voyage did the Swedish warship Vasa sail before sinking in 1628?
Roughly 1,300 metres
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.
Q 19Henry VIII's warship Mary Rose sank in 1545 in which strait?
The Solent
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.
Q 20In what year was the Mary Rose raised from the seabed?
1982
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.
Q 24How many passengers could Brunel's Great Eastern carry to Australia without refuelling?
4,000
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.
Q 25Shackleton's Endurance was crushed by pack ice and sank in which sea in November 1915?
Weddell Sea
All 28 men survived an epic escape via Elephant Island and South Georgia. The wreck was found in remarkable condition on 5 March 2022.
Q 26In which year was the wreck of Endurance finally discovered?
2022
The Endurance22 team found her nearly 107 years after she sank, upright and with her name still legible on the stern.
Q 27Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 raft Kon-Tiki was built mainly from what?
Balsa logs
Built in Peru to indigenous designs, it drifted 6,900 km in 101 days before hitting a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotus.
Q 28How many days did the Kon-Tiki voyage across the Pacific last?
101
Heyerdahl and five companions wanted to prove South Americans could have settled Polynesia. His book about it became a global bestseller.
Q 29The Japanese surrender ending World War II was signed on the deck of which US battleship?
USS Missouri
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.
Q 30How many officers and crew died when USS Arizona's magazine exploded at Pearl Harbor?
1,177
That was nearly half of all American deaths in the attack. The sunken hull still leaks oil beneath its memorial.