Getting your questions ready
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50 free nautical trivia questions with answers. Whether you sail, fish, cruise or just like a good sea story, this nautical trivia set covers the water from every angle. It ranges from boat basics (why port is on the left, what a knot measures, how many bells make a watch) to the famous vessels of history: the Mayflower, HMS Victory, USS Constitution, the Bounty, the Cutty Sark, Titanic, Kon-Tiki, Queen Mary 2 and the container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal. The easy questions ask what a keel is and which side is starboard. The hard ones want the length of a nautical mile, the origin of 'mayday', the physicist who built the lighthouse lens, the Tamil word behind 'catamaran' and where the oldest boat in the world was found. Built for pub quizzes, yacht-club nights, cruise-ship trivia and anyone who knows their poop deck from their crow's nest. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the vessels, terms and events, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In modern naval terms, what qualifies a vessel as a boat?
It can be carried aboard a ship
The oldest boat ever found, the Pesse canoe, is a dugout dating from around 8000 BC.
Q 02The oldest recovered boat in the world, the Pesse canoe, was found in which country?
The Netherlands
It was hollowed from a Scots pine trunk between 8200 and 7600 BC.
Q 03Facing the bow, which side of a vessel is starboard?
Right
The name comes from the steering oar, or 'steer-board', that early ships carried on that side.
Q 04Why was the steering oar of early ships mounted on the starboard side?
Most people are right-handed
Ships therefore docked on the left, the side that became 'port'.
Q 05Before 'port', the left side of a ship was known by what name?
Larboard
It came from 'ladebord', the loading side, and was changed because it sounded too much like starboard.
Q 06How long is an international nautical mile?
1,852 metres
It was historically one minute of latitude, so the Earth's polar circumference is close to 21,600 nautical miles.
Q 07A knot is a unit of what?
Speed
One knot is one nautical mile per hour, exactly 1.852 km/h.
Q 08The knot got its name from what?
Knots tied along a log-line
Sailors counted the knots that ran through their hands as a chip log paid out over the stern, timed by a 28-second sand-glass.
Q 09Which naval officer devised the wind-force scale that bears his name in 1805?
Francis Beaufort
His original 13 classes described the effect of the wind on a frigate's sails rather than wind speeds.
Q 10Which part of a ship is described as its bottom-most longitudinal structural element?
The keel
Some scholars regard 'keel' as the first English word ever recorded in writing.
Q 11What is the lowest compartment of a ship, where water collects, called?
The bilge
Bilge water can be a nasty cocktail of oil, urine, detergents and solvents.
Q 12The 'poop deck' takes its name from a French word meaning what?
Stern
Poupe comes from the Latin puppis; it is the roof of the aft cabin.
Q 13On a ship, how many bells mark the end of a four-hour watch?
Eight
One bell was struck for each half-hour, timed with a 30-minute hourglass.
Q 14Where on a ship is the crow's nest?
Q 21The word 'catamaran' comes from a Tamil word meaning what?
Logs bound together
The twin-hull design itself was an Austronesian invention that carried people across the Pacific.
Q 22The word 'kayak' comes from which language?
Inuktitut
The first kayaks were animal skins stretched over wood or whalebone frames.
Q 23What is distinctive about the hull of a Venetian gondola?
It is asymmetrical
The lopsided shape makes rowing with a single oar more efficient.
The Bermuda rig, with its triangular mainsail, is also known by what other name?
Upper part of the main mast
It should not be confused with the 'top', the platform on each lower mast of a square-rigger.
Q 15What does the load line painted on a ship's hull, named after a Victorian MP, indicate?
Its maximum legal loading depth
Samuel Plimsoll campaigned for it; the current rules date from a 1966 international convention.
Q 16Which signal flag do diving support vessels fly to show they have a diver down?
Alfa
The blue-and-white swallowtail warns other vessels to keep clear.
Q 17Where did the SOS distress signal originate?
German radio rules of 1905
It was never an abbreviation, just an easily recognised run of three dots, three dashes, three dots.
Q 18'Mayday' was coined in the 1920s by a radio officer at which airport?
Croydon
Frederick Mockford chose it as the phonetic equivalent of the French m'aider because so much traffic went to Paris.
Q 19The most famous lighthouse of antiquity stood at which city?
Alexandria
The Pharos collapsed after a series of earthquakes between 956 and 1323; the Tower of Hercules in Spain still stands.
Q 20Which French physicist developed the multi-part lens used in lighthouses?
Augustin-Jean Fresnel
His lens let a small light be seen for many miles.
Marconi rig
It was developed in Bermuda in the 17th century.
Q 25Chinese junks are characterised by which feature that made them safer than Western ships of the time?
Watertight bulkheads
They also had a central rudder and flat-bottomed design.
Q 26A trireme was an ancient warship with how many banks of oars?
Three
It developed from the penteconter, which had a single row of 25 oars each side.
Q 27Viking longships were sometimes called 'dragonships' because of what?
Carved dragon heads at the ends
The sail was imagined as the dragon's wing.
Q 28Which of Columbus's 1492 ships was the largest and served as his flagship?
Santa María
It ran aground off Hispaniola on Christmas Day; the Niña's official name was actually Santa Clara.
Q 29How many passengers did the Mayflower carry to America in 1620?
102
A second ship, the Speedwell, proved unseaworthy and was left behind in England.
Q 30HMS Victory served as whose flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar?
Horatio Nelson
Launched in 1765, she has sat in dry dock at Portsmouth since 1922.