Tim Goosey's notes at YouTube say that he wrote the part about the Titanic and Simon Nicol wrote the verses about the Challenger.


MAIDEN VOYAGE
As sung by Simon Nicol on "Consonant Please Carol" (2011)

1. On April the eleventh in the year of nineteen-twelve,
Greatest White Star liner to New York it set sail.
Thirteen hundred passengers, nine hundred crew
Said she was unsinkable, so the lifeboats were but few.

CHORUS 1: On her maiden voyage, the first time she had sailed,
When man cast down the challenge, nature's wroth prevailed.

2. Nine hundred feet from stern to bow, forty thousand tons,
The mighty ship Titanic sailed out into the night.
The fourteenth day of April, at twenty-five to twelve,
A wall of ice was sighted; the Titanic couldn't swerve. CHORUS 1

3. At two o'clock on Monday, the mighty ship went down.
Two thousand and two hundred; there were fifteen hundred drowned.
... in his search for immortality,
The man who built the biggest liner to ever sail the sea. CHORUS 1

4. Twenty-eighth of January, nineteen eighty-six,
Stood the mighty Challenger and her crew of six.
There was Christa McAuliffe; she'd been chosen for her place,
A civilian school-teacher, the first citizen in space.

CHORUS 2: On her maiden voyage, the first time she had flown.
When man cast down the challenge, nature claimed her own.

5. The night before the launch, it was eight degrees below.
Icicles were forming and the crowd began to grow.
With bated breath we watched her as the countdown it began.
Then again we saw the folly, the foolishness of man. CHORUS 2

CHORUS 3: It was her maiden voyage, the first time she had flown.
When man cast down the challenge, nature called her home.