The End of Santa María

[TimReynaga]

As every schoolchild knows, the Santa María was, along with the Niña and Pinta, Christopher Columbus’ ship for the expedition which led to the European rediscovery of the Americas in 1492. For the next two months after the initial Discovery she continued to serve as the flagship as Columbus explored the New World, but Santa María was destined never again to return to Spain. Late in the evening of Christmas Eve, 1492, as the ship stood in calm seas off Haiti and most of the crew slept, the negligent steersman decided to put the helm in the hands of the ship’s boy so he too could nap.

Santa María’s inglorious end soon came as she ran up on a reef at Cap‑Haïtien, and the surf pulled her seams apart. Her men were rescued by the Niña (in the background in this painting), and enough of her stores and timbers were salvaged to build a small fort ashore, but the ship herself was no more.

A couple of years ago I built up Pyro’s venerable Santa María kit. Although it came out well enough, I had originally intended to place the model in a diorama setting.

So now…

[RDT1953]

Thanks Tim for the wording “ European
rediscovery “ . A long standing gripe of mine since the Norsemen were here long before a lost Columbus accidentally bumped into North America .

[brekinapez]

I’d hate to have been the negligent steersman after that incident.

[Russelle]

Watching with interest to see what you do with this one, Tim

[TimReynaga]

I’d hate to have been the negligent steersman after that incident.

I bet Columbus was royally pissed at the steersman, Pedro Alonso Niño… but he apparently got over it. After all, several of the Niño family were involved in the expedition – Pedro Alonso’s brother Juan was the owner and master of the Niña, and brother Fernando and a nephew were along as seamen… so rather than take on the whole clan, Columbus probably decided to just suck it up and get on with things. He even brought the unruly steersman with him again when he returned to the New World the following year!

Anyway, steersman Pedro Alonso Niño was a real piece of work. Nicknamed “El Negro” for his involvement in the African slave trade, he later made a fortune ripping off Venezuelan Indians exchanging trinkets for pearls, but ended up dying in prison after being accused of cheating the Spanish king of his share.

So clearly, Columbus was running a quality operation…

[Biggles50]

Or you could rebuild it as the " Serranillos ", Columbus’ fourth ship, which was hushed up. That’s the one that accidentally sailed over the edge of the world and disappeared. Put it in a dio that looks like it’s tipping over a waterfall!

[Klaus-Adler]

not to mention the “Pyrie” map that columbus was rumoured to have had a copy on which had Antarctica on it but was only rediscovered 200 years ago.

[srmalloy]

That would be the portolan sailing chart created in 1513 by Ottoman Admiral of the Fleet, geographer, and cartographer Ahmed Muhiddin Piri bin Hacı Mehmed, better known as Piri Reis. The Piri Reis map was found in 1929 in the library of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul when the palace was being converted to a museum. The surviving portion, approximately 90cm x 63cm, is believed to be about one third of the original. Piri Reis cites his references and sources on the face of the map, stating that he used twenty sources for it, including eight Ptolemaic maps, an Arabic map of India, four Portuguese maps and the maps of Christopher Columbus featuring the ‘Western Lands’. Since Piri Reis acknowledges Christopher Columbus’ maps as one of his sources for creating the map, it’s highly unlikely Columbus had a copy with him on his initial voyage.

[Klaus-Adler]

ok ten points to hufflepuff.

there is another world map that pre-dates that map and i can’t remember it’s name but that’s the one that columbus is rumoured to have used to help him bump into America.

[Biggles50]

Apparently, Columbus’ map, or one of them, names Greenland as “Thule”, the Norse name for the island. So, if there was a Scandinavian connection to his calculations, he would have been aware that there was a land to the west that had already been explored - briefly.

[MoramarthT]

@Biggles50

names Greenland as “Thule”, the Norse name for the island.

Thule was a name introduced by Greek geographers in the fourth century B.C. as a term for an uncertain “Furthest North”; the identity shifted as more candidates became known before settling on Iceland, Greenland in it’s turn became “Ultima Thule” to European geographers. Thule wasn’t applied to anywhere in Greenland until a trading post was set up in 1910 in a location later taken over by the USAF (Thule Air Base) in 1953 but this dropped out of use in 2023 when it became Pituffik Space Base. As the replacement civilian settlement established as New Thule is now Qaanaaq, any erroneous association of Thule with Greenland has been resolved. The Norse only ever called Greenland by that name…

Cheers,

M

P.S. Sorry about getting all pedantic there, my Aspie circuits kicked in… Technically, Greenland should now be “Ultima Thule” as Kaffeklubben Island is currently the official, undisputed northernmost permanent land on Earth: however, global warming shrinking the Arctic ice cap could reveal other contenders, or vulcanicity create a land mass further north…
Of course, changes of ownership could alter nomenclature, “Terra Glacialis Trumpiana” is being mooted…

[TimReynaga]

A depiction of the end of the Santa María would be an interesting challenge, but I had some questions about the received version of these events. After doing a little more historical research, it became evident to me that the real story of Santa María’s end was somewhat different from the official version.

The world, as we now recognize, and as sensible Europeans at the time knew very well, is flat. Nevertheless, there were then (as now) a small but vocal group of reality-deniers promoting the ludicrous notion that the Earth was actually round – like a ball! Christopher Columbus was among the loudest of these nutters, and his antics so amused Queen Isabella of Castille that she eventually agreed to lend the expendable foreigner three second-hand ships just to see where his dopey ideas might take him.

Much to everyone’s surprise, the tiny fleet actually blundered into previously unknown (and, it turns out, clothing optional) lands. After they returned to Spain with such cool stuff as gold, tobacco, coca leaf, tomatoes, pineapples, the hammock (all well received) and syphilis (less popular), the Queen realized that her favorite loon had actually turned out to be a pretty good investment. Awkwardly, though, Columbus had returned without his flagship.

Apparently, having heard about a magical island called California, he had sent the Santa María and Pinta to check it out. Staying ashore himself to cavort with the natives, he was not aboard when the flagship ventured a little too close to the Edge of the World (California has always been on the Edge)…

– and over the Edge Santa María went!

Fortunately the Pinta had wisely held back and so, picking up Niña and the Admiral, they made their way back to Spain. Embarrassed by the loss of his flagship and unwilling to acknowledge proof of the Flat Earth (Round-Earthers being notoriously unimpressed by actual evidence), Columbus concocted the story of the ship being steered onto reefs by a naughty boy. Now the Queen didn’t buy this absurd tale for a minute, but she also knew a good thing when she saw one… Realizing that news of ships falling off the Edge of the Earth would be bad for business, she went along with it.

And so, until this very day, few people know the true story of the fate of the Santa María.