Ship Trivia Quiz

Wellll....If the Maine ever was the longest ship in the Navy, she still is.  (She didn't attain that status until most of her was sunk.  The Pittsburgh only could claim "longest ship" status for a relatively short period, while she was still in commission - and certainly can't claim it now.  How's that for sea-lawyering?)

What surprises me most about this exchange is that it took so long for anybody to get the answer.  I thought it was an old chestnut that everybody had heard by this time.   

RickF - we're all chomping at the bitt.  Let's have your question! 

Good morning 

Some years back on vacation we stopped in a park in the mountain town of Taos New Mexico to let the kids run around for a bit.  I found in the center of the park a stone pedestal enclosing a ship's porthole and the plaque said it was from the ship USS Maine lost in 1898.   So we should also note that the Maine is also the widest ship ever built?

If memory serves, from a visit there some years ago, there is also a memorial on the seafront in Havana, Cuba, with a few original parts on display.

Next question - which will, of course, have an RN flavour - will follow shortly.

Rick

OK, here goes with a fairly easy one .....

What was the name of the first steamship to enter service with the Royal Navy? And just to clarify things, I mean a ship owned by the RN, not borrowed or rented.

Rick

I'm going to guess that it was HMS Congo. A steam-sloop built in 1816.

The first major steam warship was HMS Agamemnon of 1852.

Davros is the nearest so far, but "Congo" doesn't count, as she was de-engined before completion and entered service as a sailing ship. In fact her engines ended up pumping out the dock at Plymouth.

Rick

Would it be the HMS Comet built in 1821 as a tug. She had two sisterships one being the HMS Lightening.

Mike T.

Thomas Dundas, 1st Baron Dundas (February 16, 1741 - June 14, 1820), known as Sir Thomas Dundas, 2nd Baronet, from 1781 to 1794, was a powerful figure in the Kingdom of Great Britain, now remembered for commissioning the Charlotte Dundas, the world's "first practical steamboat".

Jim

Telsono is very close....

Rick

The HMS Monkey built in 1821 in Rotherhithe as a paddle wheel vessel. 210 tons and 80 HP engine built by Bouton and Watt. They along with the Comet and her sisterships constructed at Deptford were built by Marc Isambard Brunel for the Admiralty.

Mike T.

Well done, Mike, HMS Monkey is correct. She pre-dated the Comet, often cited as the Royal Navy's first steamship.

From: Navies in Modern World History - Lawrence Sondhaus

After initially leasing private paddle steamers for service as tugs and tow boats, in 1821 the navy purchased its first steamer, the tug Monkey. The following year the Admiralty payed just under £10,000 to build the brig-sized tug Comet, the first British steamer constructed for naval service.

Over to you for the next question.

Rick

Thanks Rick,

Staying with early steamships, what was the first steamship to sail around Cape Horn? Also, her owner's name and his destination.

Mike T.

The Beaver was launched in England on May 5, 1835, and made her way under sail across the Atlantic, around Cape Horn, and up the South and North American coasts. The 101-foot vessel arrived in late 1835 at Fort Vancouver, near present-day Portland, Oregon, where her 13-foot-diameter paddlewheels were then installed.

Unfortunately, Beaver proved under-powered for the powerful currents of the Columbia River. Hudson's Bay Company Chief Factor John McLaughlin (1784-1857) dispatched the vessel to Fort Nisqually, on southern Puget Sound, and the ship went to work carrying passengers and cargo throughout Puget Sound and as far north as Russia's Alaskan settlements.

Jim

Sorry Jim, not the Runkel. The vessel I was thinking about made it more than a decade earlier.

Mike T.

telsono wrote:

Sorry Jim, not the Runkel. The vessel I was thinking about made it more than a decade earlier. Mike T.

"The Runkel"

or the Beaver, my bad, too many reports due today on a Friday!

Mike T.

I was just about to give a clue. The vessel was built in the British Isles and her trip around Cape Horn was on her maiden voyage. Her owner was a nobleman but the vessel never sailed under the flag of the Royal Navy or the British merchant service.

Mike T.

Another clue:

Bernardo O'Higgins was associated with this vessel.

Mike T.

Might we be looking for Thomas Cochrane, who in 1822 attempted to bring the Rising Star to be used in the Chilean revolution. Reputedly the worlds first steam warship, it was, by all accounts, fairly useless, and Cochrane left for Chile without it. It took so long to arrive that the war was over by the time got there!

Rick

RickF, you have it. Although utility aside, it was still the first steamship to make it around Cape Horn. But it was used in Peru, and Brazil.

Mike T.

Not utility, but futility. And that's my next question. What connects "futility" and 41°43N, 49°56′W?

Rick

Futility was the name of a book written in 1898 by Morgan Robertson which appeared to foreshadow the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 at that location.

Rick H

That was quick - I thought it was easy, but not that easy! Over to the other Rick for the next question.

Rick F

Thanks, Rick.  Starting to get cautious about these things, as we see more and more frequently that our view of "the", "the first" or "the only" isn't the same as what's known by our assembled body of experts here.

 But here goes -

The only surface ship class built to carry intercontinental ballistic missiles (offensively, not as a tender or transport)?