Ship Trivia Quiz

langley, cv1, sunk feb 27 42. her airgroup were seaplanes.

What was the first American aircraft carrier to be lost, and why/how did her air group survive?

Excellent!  Short and sweet, and the next question is yours schoonerbumm!!

That would be a tack line on a Cornish gaff topsail.

No, you will have to try again.  Here is a HINT!!!  A 'timminoggy' is found in boats from CORNWALL.....

Timminoggy - when someone drops a fellow named Tim from the rigging onto your noggin.

Alternate usage - when someone a sailor named Tim is in imminent danger of tripping over your prize hog at the county fair.

 

* edited to clarify nauticality.

Not to sound 'defensive,' but I believe the point of this sort of trivia quiz is to pose trivia questions, and once they are answered, the question changes hands, but the object is to 'stump' the audience.  I did tell RickF that he WAS quite close, and that just a bit more would have done the trick, and even supplied a reference and a very strong hint too to allow him to get that extra bit, and instead, I have received a bunch of pompous nonsense, my references questioned without anyone even bothering to check on them ('academics' indeed!), followed by whining and crying, rather than any real effort or asking any additional questions, or even asking for more hints, any one of which I assure you would have been most graciously produced.  Not everybody knows everything, Lord knows I certainly don't, and in those cases I stay well clear!  But I enjoy addressing a poser from time to time, and I enjoy giving one from time to time too.  Looking back on some of the other questions I have seen on this (some of which have been extraordinarily obscure!!), I cannot understand why you suddenly feel that questions should suddenly be easy, or that you necessarily should be able to just flip to something like Wikipedia or a standard dictionary for an answer!  If you feel that somehow I have personally abused you here, that was not my intent, and if that is the case, then I apologise. 

RickF wrote:

Thank you for those words of encouragement! Since you seem determined to alienate all who try and answer your questions, I have no intention of humouring you further by continuing to do so. Goodbye Rick

 

I also agree with Rick. Since you continually put people down in such a fashion, I have gone to another more friendly forum. THANK YOU VERY MUCH SEARAT for turning another one away from what was a very good Thread and Forum.

Thank you for those words of encouragement! Since you seem determined to alienate all who try and answer your questions, I have no intention of humouring you further by continuing to do so.

Goodbye

Rick

Yes, and apparently, you didn't know it. nor did you know the original use of the spinnaker, by the 'Niobe,' DESPITE the fact that I gave you a hint AND a reference!!! You have FAILED at this question Cadet, so suck it up and drive on!  Answer the next question!!!  WHAT is a Timminoggy???

RickF wrote:

So, after all that, the origin of the word spinnaker, which was, I think your original question, comes from a corruption of the name of the yacht "Sphinx"???? Rick

Gee, I think you might have touched on that earlier, Rick.

So, after all that, the origin of the word spinnaker, which was, I think your original question, comes from a corruption of the name of the yacht "Sphinx"????

Rick

Next question.... What is a 'Timminoggy?'

Well, it looks like I will have to supply the answer..... From 'The Gaff Rig Handbook,' page 49, paragraph 2:

"In 1852 the small yacht Leo, owned byy McMullen, the noted Victorian amateur cruising yachtsman, set a triangular spinnaker from the topmast head, boomed out to weather in addition ro his ordinary canvas, and no doubt, similar sails were set by many other craft years before the supposed invention of the Spi9nnaker in 1866.  What is nearer the truth is that a triangular running sail set from the topmast head and boomed out was first set in yacht racing, in 1865, by the cutter Niobe, owned by William Gordon, and during that season it was called a 'Niobe.'  The following year, the yacht Sphinx came out with a slightly improved version of the sail which, as her South Coast crew called her the 'Spinks' (think Robert Newton as Long John Silver; my Italics), was referred to as the 'Spinker.'  From that the term was, apparently, gradually corrupted to 'Spinnaker' which is the term still in use."

 So now you know.......

searat12 wrote:

Right.  So perhaps if you simply answered the question, then perhaps we can all get on with this?  If you DON'T know the answer, and/or DON'T have any relevant references then perhaps it is best to not say anything.  Yes?  I just get SO tired of people with nothing relevant to say, but insist on saying it just the same.....

I'm sorry, Mr. rat. I didn't mean to be so irrelevant. But it just seems that nobody is able to answer your trivial question. I don't think there are many of us here with your vast reference library to fall on. But, if I have anything to say I will say it as long as it fits within the guidelines of this forum, relevant or not. I apologize in advance, but please, just deal with it.

Right.  So perhaps if you simply answered the question, then perhaps we can all get on with this?  If you DON'T know the answer, and/or DON'T have any relevant references then perhaps it is best to not say anything.  Yes?  I just get SO tired of people with nothing relevant to say, but insist on saying it just the same..... 

Maybe you should find out who John Leather is (or rather WAS, as he died in 2006), and THEN make a statement like that!  He is something like Boudriot in his knowledge and credibility base.... He wrote 17 books in all, and was a contributing editor to 'Classic Boat Magazine' and others for many years as well...... His 'Gaff Rig Handbook' has been in continuous publication since 1970!

Matbe John Leather hasn't read the dictionary and is just making stuff up.

LOL!  Maybe there is someone out there with access to John Leather who will come up with the answer yet.....So I will wait a couple more days.....

Nah, I'll stick with the dictionary - I'm nearly up to "V" and it's just starting to get exciting!

Rick

Well, you see, you are going to have to pull your nose out of the dictionary, and get a hold of one of the many books by John Leather, who is pretty much THE recognised expert on all things relating to gaff rig, and classic yacht racing.  I suggest 'The Northseaman,' or 'The Gaff Rig Handbook,' or perhaps 'A Panorama of Gaff Rig,' or one of his others.  He is also a primary reference for many other books by other authors, such as 'The Chatham Directory of Inshore Craft,' and many others.  'The Gaff Rig Handbook' is the Bible for all those interested in gaff-rigged boats...... You are close, but try again!

According to the Oxford English Dictionary - usually a reliable source - the first appearance in print of the word (or something like it) was in August 1866 in a yachting magazine:

" The Sphinx [set] a ‘spinniker’, a kind of large balloon jib extending from the topmast head to the deck, and before the wind a most powerful drawing sail."

This is followed by other refernces to its use. However, it stops short at giving a definite origin of the word. As does Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which give the origin as "unknown".

The only "Dictionary of Nautical Terms" I have (Thompson Lenfestey) repeats the 1866 Sphinx story - "Sphinx's Acre" (of sail) becoming "Spinnaker" through usage.

I have not read any of John Leather's books, so I can't comment on his scholarship, but I will be interested to see what he claims.

Rick

You are going to have to try harder than that!  I refer you to John Leather, and here is a hint; 'Niobe!'

Good question, searat, but not one that can be answered with any real authority. There are several rival claimants for the origin of the word - the yacht "Sphinx" from the 1860s, a version of the word "spanker" or a Scots word "spoon" (or "speen"), meaning to run before the wind.

However, none of these really stands up, and most academic sources , as opposed to folklore and old salts tales agree that the origin of the word is...."unknown"

Rick

Sorry to be so slow!  Here is my question... What is the origin of the word for a certain kind of a sail called a 'spinnaker?'

Copper sheathing, first applied to the Alarm, was a huge force multiplier for a navy with a maritime strategy based on blockade. Copper sheathing diminished marine growth, keeping vessels out of the dockyards and at sea maintaining usefull speed capability for extended periods and prolonging hull life by keeping out "the worm".

Most are aware of the galvanic corrosion issues associated with copper sheathing, but the most unusual issue I have found is from Capt. John Byron's journal of his circumnavigation of the world in the 24 gun ship Dolphin (third vessel to be coppered) in the 1760's. Even though he thought that copper sheathing was "the finest invention in the world", it did create a hardship on the crew, because Byron blamed the Dolphin's shortage of fresh meat at sea to the copper scaring the fish away! 

I dont think I need to discuss the carronade's effects at close range. Its first use is credited both to a Carron Company commercial vessel (the Paisley in May 1779 per Peter Padfield) and to a Liverpool privateer (the Spitfire in "early 1779" per Brian Lavery).

The first mounting to a RN vessel is obscure, with trials beginning in May 1779 on several ships.

But, sources are consistent in identifying the carronade's first success in the RN, the taking of the French 32 gun Frigate Nymphe (26 X 12, 14 X 6) by the English 36 gun frigate Flora (26 X 18, 9 X 9, 1 X 18c).  Based on the weight of metal, the odds were stacked in the Flora's favor, but the effect of the carronade in the battle was astounding; the single carronade, manned by the bosun and a boy "created havoc" amongst the "unsuspecting" French crew. The Nypmhe lost 139 killed, compared to 26 fatalities on the Flora.  

The carronade had been initially rejected by many RN officers in the "peacetime navy", the Admiralty relenting to pressure and arming vessels with carronades only at a captain's discretion (many RN officers questioned its efectiveness and were convinced that it would set fire to the rigging). The success of the carronade in actions during 1780 and 1781, and the lack of rigging fires, led to its rapid adoption within the RN.

SeaRat, the floor is yours. 

 

The first part I believe is the carronade, the second part is copper sheathing for the bottoms of ships, and the third part is HMS Alarm, a 32-gun British frigate, which was the first ship so 'coppered.'

I won't pretend to know the answer to this one, but I think the first innovation you might be referring to would be the carronade?

During the second half of the eighteenth century, the Royal Navy adopted two technical innovations which provided sigificant force multipliers, one for significantly increasing firepower at close range and another for effectively increasing the size and mobility of its operational fleet.

What were these innovations and what were the first vessels known to have incorporated them?