Marine Trivia Quiz 149  

Compiled by Jim Broadside

1. The abandonment of the Mary Celeste is now thought to have been caused by:  
  _ An attack by pirates  
  _ A gas explosion which cause panic  
  _ A giant squid which terrified those on board

2. The iron sea-going steam (later diesel) cargo ship Nelcebee was first assembled:  
  _ At Scotland in 1883  
  _ In Port Adelaide in 1886  
  _ At Port Pirie in 1890

3. Eccleston Frederick Du Faur was primarily responsible for:  
  _ Transfer of a saluting gun from Dawes Point to Fort Denison in 1906  
  _ Development of Cockatoo Island in the early 1900s  
  _ Establishment of Ku-ring-gai Chase as a national park in 1894.

4. The first Olympic 49er Class major regatta in WA for over a decade will be hosted by:  
  _ Mounts Bay Sailing Club, Perth  
  _ Royal Perth Yacht Club  
  _ West Australian Maritime Museum

5. The first submarines of the Royal Navy were:  
  _ Hunley class, designed by 3 US engineers and built in Mobile, Alabama  
  _ Holland class, designed in US and built by Vickers at Barrow-in Furness  
  _ F class, designed by Lord Fisher and built by Dorman and Long at Newcastle

6. A bottlescrew is:  
  _ A device to remove corks from wide-necked bottles  
  _ A screw made of glass used to join layers of pliable material  
  _ A turnbuckle

7. HMS Bounty, on which the famous mutiny took place:  
  _ Was originally a merchant ship  
  _ Was built to transport a cheap source of food for slaves  
  _ Had been Nelson’s only peacetime commission as a captain

8. The US destroyer lost in Darwin harbour to Japanese bombing was:  
  _ USS Farragut  
  _ USS Peary  
  _ USS Hoover

9. Fremantle WA was named after:  
  _ LTCOL Arthur Fremantle, Coldstream Guards  
  _ Captain Charles Fremantle, RN  
  _ Thomas Francis Fremantle, 1st Baron Cottesloe

10. The Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race 2008 was the:  
  _ 63rd such race  
  _ 64th such race  
  _ 65th such race

Last month’s winners –  

 Merril O’Halloran, Lindfield, NSW  

Answers to Quiz No 148

1. Access to the 2008 Club Marine Mandurah Boat Show WA was enhanced by the new Perth to Mandurah rail line with a complimentary shuttle bus service. 
  2. The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, in cooperation with Royal Yacht Club Tasmania, has announced an organised non-time based Cruise to Hobart for January-February 2009. 
  3. Sunscreen use-by dates are valid if the container is stored at less than 25°C. 
  4. The brigantine Mary Celeste was eventually lost in Haiti in January 1885 when she was run aground and set on fire as part of an attempted insurance fraud. 
  5. An anemometer measures velocity of the wind. 
  6. A ‘Banyan Day’ in the English Navy was one on which salt meat would be replaced with fish or cheese in sailors’ meals. 
  7. The cause of scurvy was found to be a deficiency of Vitamin C. State Library of NSW has just acquired a stunning set of the landmark books by Lind, Macbride, Blane, and Trotter. 
  8. To ‘trice up’ is to haul up to make something more secure or more conveniently secured. 
  9. A ‘thole pin’ is a wooden pin in the gunwhale of a boat to which an oar is held when rowing; two pins may be used together with the oar between them. 
  10. At close of nominations, 113 yachts had nominated for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2008; one of the largest fleets in a decade.