ZAGLOWIEC KRZYSZTOFA KOLUMBA SANTA MARIA

Santa Maria ZAGLOWIEC KRZYSZTOFA KOLUMBA SANTA MARIA Papercraft

La Santa María de la Inmaculada Concepción (Spanish for: The Holy Mary of the Immaculate Conception), or La Santa María, was the largest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first voyage. Her master and owner was Juan de la Cosa.

The Santa was built in Pontevedra, Galicia, in Spain's north-west region.[2][3] The Santa was probably a medium-sized nau (carrack), about 58 ft (17.7 m) long on deck, and according to Juan Escalante de Mendoza in 1575, the was "very little larger than 100 toneladas" (about 100 tons, or tuns) burthen, or burden,[4][5][6] and was used as the flagship for the expedition. The Santa had a single deck and three masts.

The other ships of the Columbus expedition were the smaller caravel-type ships Santa Clara, remembered as La Niña ("The Girl"), and La Pinta ("The Painted"). All these ships were second-hand (if not third- or more) and were not intended for exploration. The Niña, Pinta, and the were modest-sized merchant vessels comparable in size to a modern cruising yacht. The exact measurements of length and width of the three ships have not survived, but good estimates of their burden capacity can be judged from contemporary anecdotes written down by one or more of Columbus's crew members, and contemporary Spanish and Portuguese shipwrecks from the late 15th and early 16th centuries which are comparable in size to that of . These include the ballast piles and keel lengths of the Molasses Reef Wreck and Highborn Cay Wreck in the Bahamas. Both were caravel vessels 19 m (62 ft) in length overall, 12.6 m (41 ft) keel length and 5 to 5.7 m (16 to 19 ft) in width, and rated between 100 and 150 tons burden.[7] The , being Columbus' largest ship, was only about this size, and the Niña and Pinta were smaller, at only 50 to 75 tons burden and perhaps 15 to 18 meters (50 to 60 feet) on deck[4] (updated dimensional estimates are discussed below in the section entitled Replicas).

A Spanish vessel in those days was given an official religious name, but was generally known by a nickname, oftentimes a feminine form of either her master's patronymic, or of her home port. Bartolomé de Las Casas, a priest and historian who extensively chronicled Columbus' expeditions, never used the name in his writings, and instead called the ship La Capitana ("flagship") or La Nao. Columbus himself, in his detailed logs, only called it La Capitana.[8] Some[who?] claim that the ship was known to her sailors as Marigalante ("Gallant Maria"), but that nickname was given to namesake replacement, used on Columbus's second voyage.[9]