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Ship Trivia Quiz

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  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: San Francisco, CA
Posted by telsono on Monday, January 28, 2008 10:02 AM

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.

 

Beware the hobby that eats.  - Ben Franklin

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. - Ben Franklin

The U.S. Constitution  doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. - Ben Franklin

  • Member since
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  • From: Spartanburg, SC
Posted by subfixer on Monday, January 28, 2008 9:18 AM
It's been four days since the last answer (incorrect answer). How about an update or a little help on this one. I have exhausted my references and cannot find anything.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

  • Member since
    July 2006
  • From: San Francisco, CA
Posted by telsono on Friday, January 25, 2008 3:25 PM

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

Mike T.

Beware the hobby that eats.  - Ben Franklin

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. - Ben Franklin

The U.S. Constitution  doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. - Ben Franklin

  • Member since
    March 2004
  • From: Spartanburg, SC
Posted by subfixer on Friday, January 25, 2008 2:31 PM
 telsono wrote:

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

Mike T.

"The Runkel"

I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

  • Member since
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  • From: San Francisco, CA
Posted by telsono on Friday, January 25, 2008 1:17 PM

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

Mike T.

Beware the hobby that eats.  - Ben Franklin

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. - Ben Franklin

The U.S. Constitution  doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. - Ben Franklin

  • Member since
    May 2005
  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Friday, January 25, 2008 12:13 PM

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

Jim
  • Member since
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  • From: San Francisco, CA
Posted by telsono on Thursday, January 24, 2008 6:15 PM

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.

Beware the hobby that eats.  - Ben Franklin

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. - Ben Franklin

The U.S. Constitution  doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. - Ben Franklin

  • Member since
    February 2006
  • From: Norfolk, UK
Posted by RickF on Thursday, January 24, 2008 5:46 PM

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

  • Member since
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  • From: San Francisco, CA
Posted by telsono on Thursday, January 24, 2008 12:22 PM

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.

Beware the hobby that eats.  - Ben Franklin

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. - Ben Franklin

The U.S. Constitution  doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. - Ben Franklin

  • Member since
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  • From: Norfolk, UK
Posted by RickF on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 5:24 PM

Telsono is very close....

Rick

  • Member since
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  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 11:45 AM

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

Jim
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  • From: Carmel, CA
Posted by bondoman on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 9:43 PM
HMS Alecto. The paddle wheeled one.
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  • From: San Francisco, CA
Posted by telsono on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:51 PM

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

Mike T.

Beware the hobby that eats.  - Ben Franklin

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. - Ben Franklin

The U.S. Constitution  doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. - Ben Franklin

  • Member since
    February 2006
  • From: Norfolk, UK
Posted by RickF on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:33 PM

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

  • Member since
    February 2003
Posted by shannonman on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 1:58 PM

The first major steam warship was HMS Agamemnon of 1852.

Make a Toast [#toast]

"Follow me who can" Captain Philip Broke. H.M.S. Shannon 1st June 1813.
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  • From: Barrow in Furness, Cumbria, UK.
Posted by davros on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 1:08 PM

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

  • Member since
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  • From: Waltham MA
Posted by runkel on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 12:51 PM
I'll guess the HMS Rattler launched in 1843 and commissioned in 1844.
Jim
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  • From: Spartanburg, SC
Posted by subfixer on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:25 AM
I'm sorry, Rick, but I have to throw a belated "Booo!...hisssss!" to the professor.  US Naval Academy....Bah! Now, back to you sir.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

  • Member since
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  • From: Norfolk, UK
Posted by RickF on Monday, January 21, 2008 6:33 AM

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

  • Member since
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  • From: Norfolk, UK
Posted by RickF on Sunday, January 20, 2008 5:33 PM

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

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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Sunday, January 20, 2008 1:01 PM
Good point, CaptainBill.  You should bring that fact to the attention of the people at Annapolis.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

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  • From: Colorado
USS Maine is also in New Mexico
Posted by CaptainBill03 on Sunday, January 20, 2008 10:03 AM

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?

 

 

Captain Road Kill
  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Sunday, January 20, 2008 2:55 AM

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! 

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
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  • From: Seattle, WA
Posted by Surface_Line on Sunday, January 20, 2008 2:32 AM

<please insert here the digital equivalent of a bronx cheer>

 Being a naval officer who was commissioned from the enlisted ranks, I always had issues with questions like that.  The Naval Academy frequently seems to have a way to miss the most important of the obvious.

Prof. Tilley - you have let me down.  You said the question was in the present tense.  I could see the Constitution filling the "present tense" requirement, if there were parts spread about the country, but just as you said about the Pittsburgh, the Maine is no longer with us. Blah.  Only in the minds of USNA midshipmen.

<end of rant>  I'm sure the next question will be better. :-)

Rick H 

  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Sunday, January 20, 2008 12:43 AM

RickF got it.  Generations of Naval Academy plebes have learned from sadistic upper classmen that the longest ship in the U.S. Navy is the U.S.S. Maine, because her foremast is on the seawall of the Naval Academy campus and her mainmast stands on top of a memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

(Brief pause for the electronic equivalent of vegetable throwing.)

After the Spanish-American War the remains of the Maine were raised from the bottom of Havana Harbor.  A Navy board of inquiry studied them and came to the conclusion (still hotly debated) that she had been sunk by an external explosive device.  The wreck was then towed out to sea and sunk, with military honors, in deep water - but not before both masts had been removed for preservation.

The foremast (which had been rather thoroughly mutilated by the explosion) was installed in a prominent location overlooking the water at the Naval Academy.  A few years later an impressive, walk-in monument, with the mainmast on top of it, was built at Arlington National Cemetery as a tomb and memorial for the ship's crew. 

The musical connection:  after the German/Soviet occupation of Poland in 1939 the great Polish pianist and statesman Ignacy Paderewski, who, after a long career as a concert artist, had served as prime minister of Poland during the inter-war period, agreed to serve as president of the newly-created Polish Parliament in Exile.  In late 1940 he went to the United States (having previously been living in Switzerland); a few months later, in June 1941, he died.  His family, and the staff of the Polish embassy in Washington, felt it was obviously most appropriate that Paderewski be buried in Poland, but that wasn't practical.  President Roosevelt offered to make a spot in Arlington available as a temporary resting place.  Since he had never served in the U.S. armed forces or the armed forces of a nation allied with the U.S., however, Paderewski was not eligible for "burial" at Arlington.  So his coffin was placed, above ground, inside the Maine monument.  FDR said, "he may lie there until Poland is free."  In 1992 Paderewski's body was removed from the monument and, accompanied by a military guard of honor, flown to Poland for permanent interment at St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw.  (His heart, according to his own wishes, is encased in a monument at a church in the Polish-American community of Doylestown, Pennsylvania.)

The Maine monument has had one other temporary resident.  President Manuel Quezon y Molina, President of the Philippines, died in the United States in 1944.  His body was placed in the Maine monument until it could be returned to the Philippines, after the American/Filipino reoccupation.

RickF - the next question is yours! 

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    April 2005
Posted by ddp59 on Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:36 PM

isn't there a freighter(s) or somethiing like that possibly a super tanker(s) recently acquired by the us navy fairly recently 2nd hand? remember seeing about that with in the past month or so. this ship(s) is longer then the cvn's by at least 100 feet if not more. 

  • Member since
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  • From: Norfolk, UK
Posted by RickF on Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:35 PM

Can't claim any originality for this, but according to one website I've found (Roadsideamerica.com') .... "the USS Maine is known to historians as the longest ship in the US Navy, as built in Bath Maine, with relics, our cowl, the mast at the entrance of Arlington National Cemetery, the burial ground in Florida and beyond, the USS Maine stretches the entire length of the Eastern Seaboard..."

Don't fully understand the above, but is USS Maine the answer?

Rick

  • Member since
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  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, January 19, 2008 4:16 PM

Nope.  I'd have to look up the Leviathan's dimensions, but I'm pretty sure she was considerably shorter than quite a few later - and current - warships.

Also, note that the question was stated in the present tense.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
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  • From: United States
Posted by ww2modeler on Saturday, January 19, 2008 4:11 PM

Just a guess:

USS Leviathan which was a originally a German Liner that was interned by the US at the start of WW1.

David

On the bench:

1/35 Tamiya M26 Pershing-0%

1/144 Minicraft P-38J Lightning-50%

Numerous 1/35 scale figures in various stages if completion.

 

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Saturday, January 19, 2008 3:08 AM

Interesting approaches to the problem - but no.  (Several ships, including the big nuclear carriers, are longer than the Iowa-class battleships.) 

I really thought the classic answer to this question was fairly widely known.  Maybe it's time for a small hint.  Bonus points and a collection of antique popsickle sticks to the member who knows the relationship between the answer to this question and classical music.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

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