Christopher Columbus Research Paper

Christopher Columbus made trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain in hope to find a western route to China, India , and the islands of Asia. Within these trips, he used 3 different ships. The names of these ships are the Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Maria. All of these boats were used in many of his voyages for different reasons. The Nina and Pinta were both cargo ships while Santa Maria was mostly used as a crew holder (the-nina.com). The Nina also stood as Colmubus’s favorite ship while his least favorite was the Santa Maria(the-nina.com). Nina was the first ship to ever go out safely and bring Columbus home safely as well. The Santa Maria was disliked strongly, it also did not help that it sank on Christmas Eve in 1492. She was a big ‘tub’ …show more content…
The Pinta wasnt liked nor disliked, it was sort of like the extra ship he had. Both the Pinta and the Santa Maria were both the same type of ship known as a carvel. The Pinta although its own ship, had many similarities to the Santa Maria. The Nina was built in the year of 1491 one and used to sail across the seas in order the find the new world(Thenina.com). This ship was the favorited out the three used. It was the smallest of the fleet and was a carvel weighing in at about fifty or sixty tons. It came to the total length of about fifteen meters, keel length twelve meters, beam five meters, and depth two meters. Carvels were mostly know as good trading ships, which is one of the uses the Nina was known for doing as well (christopher-columbus.com). When she set sail out of spain to start her voyage , she has two beautiful latten sails on the masts, but was refitted in the Canary Islands with square sails on the fore and main masts(C-Columbus.com). The Nina had very special details added into the ship for it’s time. Unlike other ships, it had four masts that included a small counter-mizzen stern with another lateen …show more content…
Of Columbus's three ships, the Pinta is the only one to have vanished from history.The fate of the Pinta always has been a mystery, a sore point with historians since she was from the Pinta's decks that one Rodrigo de Triana first sighted the New World the morning of Oct. 12, 1492 (History.com). Not one record has been found of her fate. This problem is further compounded by the fact that Pinta wasn't her official name, rather a nickname.(Philips, 212) With the real name lost, the ship is lost with it. It was built by the riverbank carpenters of Palos de la Frontera and was owned by Cristóbal Quintero and Gómez Rascón, neighbors of that town, to whom it was seized. Its name seems to be due to the fact that it previously belonged to the Pinto family, also from Palos(Philips, 93). La Pinta was the fastest of the three Colombian ships and often had to wait for the other two during the historic trip, also due to the skills of Captain Pinzón. On October 8, in a struggle to get the first to discover the new lands, reached a speed of 15 miles per hour (12 miles / hour today)(C-Columbus.com.) The Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón, an experienced mariner from the town of Moguer in Andalucia. Pinta was a caravel. Since we don't know much about what happened to the Pinta, historians estimate it probably was about seventy tons, with a length of seventeen meters, keel length thirteen meters, beam five

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