Literally Just Boat Facts

On this day, 111 years ago, RMS Lusitania was struck by a torpedo from a German U-Boat and sunk off the coast of Ireland on her way back from New York.

We all know, thanks to the Titanic, that no ship is unsinkable... or is there?

The MV Joyita, originally designed to be a luxury yacht and later converted into a merchant vessel, was a wooden cedar-oak framed ship. She was lined with 640 cubic feet of cork, making her virtually unsinkable.

One aspect of the sinking of the Titanic that gets discussed from time to time was the pair of binoculars meant for the crows nest stuck in a locker. it's alleged that the key was mistakenly taken by the original second officer, David Blair, who was reassigned as part of a last-minute reshuffling of the crew.

There are several terms and methods used to determine how large a ship is. Displacement is the actual weight of a ship. This is determined by calculating how much water the ship will displace and then converting this value into it's actual weight in either displacement tons or tonnes.

The Dom Fernando II e Glória was the last sailing frigate to be built by the Portuguese Navy. Though she suffered from a fire in 1963, her hull survived and was later restored into a museum ship. She is one of the oldest warships you can still visit today!