Archaeology Magazine - May/June 1992 - 115

Santa Marías (V and VI) were designed by MartinezHidalgo; one was shipped across the Atlantic to the 1964
New York World's Fair, and another was constructed in
1968 for display in Caracas, Venezuela.
The idea of retracing Columbus's 1492 route in a sailing replica continued with the construction of the Niña
II (actually Niña III ) at San Sebastián, Spain, in 1962
under the direction of naval Lieutenant Carlos Etayo
Elizondo. According to initial sea-trial reports she
"couldn't go twenty feet in a straight line"; after alterations to her masts and rudder, the vessel was both towed
and sailed to Palos de la Frontera, where she began her
voyage. Her crew of nine volunteers was equipped with
replica clothes, food, arms, and navigational instruments. A cat, which eventually was lost at sea, and a
goat named Pinzona, which inevitably was eaten by the
crew, were taken aboard in the Canary Islands. Towed
out of Gomera, the vessel set sail for San Salvador on
a westerly course. Confronted with rough weather,
sharks, and a broken rudder, Niña II sailed a course
some 500 to 600 miles south of the route used by
Columbus. The 42 -foot vessel was towed into San Salvador on Christmas Day, 1962. Her voyage had taken 76
days from the Canaries, 43 days longer than it took
Columbus on his voyage in the original Niña. For their
courage and spirit, Etayo and his companions received
symbolic knighthoods from the government of Spain.
On July 4, 1976, an American version of Santa Maria
joined the Bicentennial celebrations, sailing past the
review stand of Operation Sail in New York Harbor.
The K -scale reproduction, whose design was based on
the 1892 SantaMaría II, was built by a Florida-based organization, Young American Showcase. Her crew wore
period costumes and reconstructed Spanish furnishings
decorated the cabins. In addition, modern conveniences
such as a television set and a refrigerator were disguised
as barrels below deck, and a diesel engine, fire pump,
and generator were mounted in the hull. After the festivities, the vessel toured south along the Intercoastal
Waterway as a floating museum. On a Sunday afternoon in 1979 the ship caught fire and sank on the Mississippi between Memphis and St. Louis.
Official new sailing replicas of Niña, Pinta, and Santa
Maria were launched by Spain in 1989 for the upcoming
500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage. In 1987, high
in the Pyrennes, woodsmen began felling 680 tons of
oak and pine for the ships, based on designs refined by
id José María Martínez-Hidalgo, now retired from the
<
iX Museo Marítimo. Contracts with three competing shipz< yards were signed in 1988. Construction of Santa Maria
yS took place at the Viudes shipyard along the Barcelona
a5
<
oz waterfront, Pinta in the southern fishing town of Isla
o Cristina, and Niña at the naval dockyards of Cartagena.
2>
Attempts were made to utilize traditional methods and
S
3O materials in the construction of the ships: hemp for runU
ning rigging and caulking, linen for sails, and fasteners
of hand-wrought iron. Each vessel is equipped with an
iron cooking stove, medieval arms, and examples of
early navigational instruments. For safety, they have

been fitted out with generators, lights, and radios.
The new Columbus ship replicas are manned by
Spanish naval officers and carefully selected volunteer
civilians. Christened by members of Spain's Royal family, the ships underwent sea trials before embarking in
October 1990 on a European tour. After crossing the Atlantic last summer, Santa Mariai Pinta, and Niña began
their 1992 American tour at Puerto Rico, where a group
of 23 disgruntled sailors quit the voyage, citing
problems over salaries and benefits.
Still another Santa Maria has been paid for by private
Japanese contributors, who have committed $12 million
to see Columbus's voyage to the Orient finally completed after 500 years. Built in Barcelona, the replica
crossed the Atlantic with her tender late in 1991, arriving at San Salvador to place an identical bronze plaque
at each of the two alleged landfall locations on the island.
It then sailed on toward the Panama Canal and the
Pacific to her final destination at Kobe, a port on Osaka
Bay, where she will serve as a floating museum.
Almost without exception, these replicas are the
descendants of those built for the 1892 celebrations.
However, at least one replica-builder, the late John
Sarsfield, viewed construction and design shortcuts

An American % -scalereproductionof Santa Maria 11joined
the Bicentennial celebrationsin New YorkHarbor,
and modern amenities as tacit admission by the builders of these ships that the originals were never either
safe or seaworthy. His replica of an Iberian caravel,
built and launched at Valença, Brazil, is more an exercise in experimental archaeology, using early documentary descriptions of the whole molding process of
framing, archaeological evidence from early sixteenthcentury Spanish shipwrecks in the Caribbean, and traditional Portuguese small boat construction methods
and tools that survive along the coast of Brazil. Sarsfield's caravel, built to explore the parameters of wood,
wind, and water, may well be the most authentic replica yet.
May/June1992 41

Archaeology Magazine - May/June 1992

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