The Santa Maria was a cargo ship (read floating tub :-) referred to as a o type. The Ni & Pinta were smaller more maueuverable caravel types.

According to info listed here...

"The ship was steered from here with a tiller - the ship's wheel would not be invented for another 200 years. The helmsman could not see where the ship was going. He steered by the compass. The crew lived in steerage." edited to correct the inevitable typos

Message edited on: 08/27/2004 19:40

Attached Link: http://www.santamaria.org/santa_maria_images.php

Thanks, that's a useful link. Especially since it gives dimensions of the ship, and a very usable deck plan. And if you can salvage some photographs with details of the rigging, I'll be very grateful.

Attached Link: http://www.sailtexas.com/columbusships.html

Thanks lmckenzie, very useful info on the rigging there!

Glad they helped. They worked hard to get these scows and then were surprised to find out how much it was going to cost to maintain them...duh. Wooden hulls + salt water... Apparently they're pretty well researched and faithful replicas though.

Thanks hauksdottir, especially the two last photographs are very useful. Now I have a better idea how to do the tiller, and the detailed picture of the rigging is also very good.

Somehow I don't think Queen Isabella dressed like that when sending Columbus on his mission. ;^)

Why is Time.

Funny thing about wooden hulls. I read somewhere that in the 17th century the keel and hull were made of oak logs that had been floating in salt water for 10 years. I guess the replicas have been built out of freshly cut wood - as everything is built these days. So I guess they may have had a lot of torsion problems. Maintenance costs were no real problem in those days, labor was cheap. OK, back to modeling.

svdl, actually there is a thriving business salvaging cargos of old logs from wrecked transport ships here on the great lakes so it wouldn't surprise me is a lot of the recreated "classic" sailing ships were constructed with vintage timbers

The ones I linked were built by the Spanish government...for the 500th anniversary of the "discovery" of the New World, if I recall correctly, so it was a pretty big deal. I doubt they went to the trouble to start soaking timber a decade in advance though :-)

lmckenzie, They didn't have to. American forests in the Northwest were logged and the wood deliberately sunk in cold salt water for storage. It was ongoing practice to strip the government land while they could, but release the timber when prices were high, or sell it to Japan. With no oxygen and too cold/dark for critters to burrow, wood will keep for a long time. Sweden, OTOH, grew a royal preserve of oaks for 300 years (masts and keels). A letter got delvered to the Court saying that the trees were ready for harvesting. That was a few years back, too. After the parade of tall ships and the surge of interest in reconstruction, I'm sure that the Swedish government could find buyers who would pay premium for historic trees grown to that specification!

I see that it was actually Texaco who funded the replicas for Spain so no doubt they could have afforded the best. After their recreation of the historic voyage in 1990, the toured some U.S. ports and after a lot of jockeying, they ended up in Corpus Christi. Unfortunately, the great profit from tourists visiting "Los Barcos" never materialized. The "Santa Maria" and the "Pinta" were damaged in a collision with a barge and are supposedly in drydock waiting for someone to come up with money for repairs, according to a blogger who visited the "Nina" in February, and the ships may be moved to Houston. I guess Texaco has better uses for their petro-dollars these days.

Shouldn`t this be moved to the ship building forum? ;)

When Columbus left he didn'tknow where he was actually going, when he arrived he didn't know where he actually was, and when he returned he didn't know where he actually had been...and he did it all with borrowed money. :O)

yes, but that is better than being a shipless wreck! '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. (running very, very fast, on a peg leg)

hauksdottir-I wooden run with a wooden leg, it wooden be safe. (ducks out of 'site')

"If it wasn't for lovesick sailors, there'd be nothin' left but flotsam." etc.