These ship trivia questions and answers run in four rounds: the first ships, planks, sails and steam, the parts of a ship and how it floats, and working ships, load lines and the lakes.
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Nautical trivia questions on the parts of a ship
Parts of a ship and how it floats asks bow, stern, keel, transom, beam and draft, and why a steel hull floats. Working ships, load lines and the lakes has the load line mark, weather ships and the salties of the Great Lakes.
Sailing trivia questions, and the sheet to print
Planks, sails and steam is the round for sailors: clinker and carvel hulls, lateen and square sails, the carrack and the cog. Tap a choice and the card marks it right or wrong and gives the reason and the article. The questions print as a sheet, with the answer key apart.
Questions and answers
What easy boat trivia questions can a host open with?
What is the foremost part of a hull called? What is the rear part? How many hulls has a trimaran? The answers are the bow, the stern and three.
Are these maritime trivia questions and answers about famous ships?
Mostly not. They ask how ships were built, rigged, steered and measured. The Khufu ship and the last weather ship, Polarfront, are named; warships, famous wrecks and pirates are left to other packs.
Which source were the answers read against?
On October 3, 2026 each answer was found in the English Wikipedia article Ship, and every question links it. The size of the world fleet and other figures that change every year are left out.
A sailing ship of the Roman Empire could carry grain the length of the Mediterranean for less than it cost to move it how far by road?Answer: 15 miles. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
About how much Egyptian grain did Rome consume each year over the first three centuries AD?Answer: 150,000 tons. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
At the foot of which monument had the Khufu ship been entombed?Answer: The Great Pyramid of Giza. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
By which date were the Phoenicians building large merchant ships?Answer: 1200 BC. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Contact with trading ships of Southeast Asia in the 10th century led the Chinese to develop which ships?Answer: Junks. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
The earliest evidence in Mesopotamia of ships used for transport by sea takes which form?Answer: Model ships. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
How long is the Khufu ship?Answer: 143 feet. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
In which country is the earliest historical evidence of boats found, from the 4th millennium BC?Answer: Egypt. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
In which year was the Khufu ship found intact?Answer: 1954. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
The kings of which Sumerian city first mention ships in connection with sea trade, around 2500 to 2350 BC?Answer: Lagash. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Large ships of the Indonesian archipelago could sail against the wind in the 2nd century AD. Which sails let them do it?Answer: Tanja sails. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Tekkosen was the name of early Japanese ironclads. What does it literally mean?Answer: Iron ships. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Where were the center-line rudders mounted that appear on Chinese ship models from the 1st century AD?Answer: At the stern. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which Greek historian and geographer recorded that early Egyptian ships sailed the Red Sea as far as the myrrh-country?Answer: Agatharchides. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which new type of ship was recorded in Java and Bali in the 11th century?Answer: The djong, or jong. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Planks, sails and steam 17
By late in which decade were carvel ships being built in Northern Europe?Answer: The 1430s. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
From about when were sailing vessels sorted by their type of rig?Answer: The middle of the 18th century. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Higher boiler pressures, introduced in 1865, made steam cargo ships pay on the route from England to which country?Answer: China. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
How many oak trees did it take to build one French ship of the line of the 18th century?Answer: 2,800. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
How were Northern European ships rigged before the two traditions merged?Answer: With one mast and a square sail. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
How were the Mediterranean round ships steered?Answer: With a side rudder. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
In the strict sense of the word, a full-rigged ship has at least how many masts, each square rigged?Answer: Three. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
In which kind of hull, usual in Northern Europe, do the planks overlap?Answer: Clinker. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
The rise of which ships from the 1960s onward changed merchant shipping?Answer: Container ships. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
The ship type that came of the merged traditions was called a coche. What was a larger example called?Answer: A carrack. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Until which century were sails the dominant way to drive a ship?Answer: The 19th. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which engines were the first to be used to drive ships mechanically?Answer: Steam engines. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which kind of construction, with planks fitted to the frames, was the tradition of the Mediterranean?Answer: Carvel. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which northern ships are known to have traveled to the Mediterranean in the 12th and 13th centuries?Answer: Cogs. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which sails did Mediterranean ships carry on one or more masts?Answer: Lateen sails. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which ship of 1881 ran triple-expansion engines on boilers at 125 pounds per square inch?Answer: SS Aberdeen. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which ships declined in the late 20th century as air travel increased?Answer: Ocean liners. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Parts of a ship and how it floats 20
A hull reaches its hull speed at which ratio of speed to length?Answer: 1.34. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Besides wheels and electro-hydraulic systems, what can turn a rudder?Answer: A tiller. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
For a ship to float, its weight must be less than the weight of what?Answer: The water its hull displaces. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
How many hulls has a trimaran?Answer: Three. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Nuclear reactors that make steam are used to drive warships and which other ships?Answer: Icebreakers. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Ways of driving a ship fall into three categories: human, sailing and which third?Answer: Mechanical. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What are ballast tanks for?Answer: Changing the trim and stability of the ship. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What does ground tackle comprise?Answer: The anchor, its chain or cable and the fittings. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What does the draft of a ship measure?Answer: From the highest waterline to the bottom of the ship. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What is a design with a single hull called?Answer: A monohull. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What is a flat back on a hull called?Answer: A transom. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What is it called when the bow goes under in the waves as a ship pitches?Answer: Pounding. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What is the beam of a vessel?Answer: Its width. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What is the foremost part of a hull called?Answer: The bow. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What is the rear part of a hull known as?Answer: The stern. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
When is a vessel usually formally named?Answer: At its launching. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which hull fittings quell the rolling of a ship?Answer: Stabilizers. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which is the most common steering system on boats driven by engines or sails?Answer: A rudder. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which material is used for the hulls of most commercial vessels?Answer: Steel. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which part lies at the very bottom of the hull and runs the entire length of the ship?Answer: The keel. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Working ships, load lines and the lakes 18
After what is a class of ships often named?Answer: Its first ship. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
For how long were the crews of weather ships normally at sea at a time?Answer: Three weeks. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
From the 1970s, what largely took over the work of weather ships?Answer: Weather buoys. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
How long is the life expectancy of most ocean-going cargo ships?Answer: Between 20 and 30 years. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Modern commercial vessels are typically driven by a single propeller. Which engine usually turns it?Answer: A diesel engine. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
On the Great Lakes, what replaces the circle of the load line mark?Answer: A diamond. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Ship transport is responsible for the largest portion of what?Answer: World commerce. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Under a United States act of 1990, what did every tanker entering its waters need by 2015?Answer: A double hull. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What are ocean-going vessels called when they visit the Great Lakes?Answer: Salties. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What are the floating or sunken logs and trees called that endanger riverboats?Answer: Snags. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What does the load line mark on the side of a ship look like?Answer: A circle with a horizontal line through the center. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
What was the name of the last weather ship, taken out of operation on January 1, 2010?Answer: Polarfront. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which animal, first found in the Black Sea in 1982, is thought to have arrived in the ballast water of a ship?Answer: A comb jelly. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which body set up a global network of weather ships in 1948?Answer: The International Civil Aviation Organization. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which fish made up the largest single catch at sea in 2004?Answer: Anchoveta. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Which large vessels are traditionally called boats?Answer: Submarines. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Whose Merchant Shipping Act of 1876 put a load line on the sides of British ships?Answer: Samuel Plimsoll. Source: Wikipedia: Ship
Why do ships carry a ladder of load lines and not just one?Answer: Different kinds of water have different densities. Source: Wikipedia: Ship