1460 Ships boats of Christopher Columbus?

[JerseyCity Frankie]

I'm tasked with completing a model of the Santa Maria, an old Billing's Boats kit. Plans indicate two ships boats but not any details. Has anyone here got any strong opinions on the hull shapes and construction of these boats? I figured I would ask here on Model Ship World first. I anticipate a lack of contemporary records since the ships themselves are kinda sketchy when it comes to specific documentation.

I took a shot of the one-sheet plan I have to work from and this is the only drawing of the boats, there is no elevation. As you can see it is very generic.

[JerseyCity Frankie]

I tried googling and looking on Pinterest ect. But there are no good sources falling easily to hand. odd since if you think about it, the keel of Columbus's boat would have likely been the first European THING to touch the new world. There are a lot of melodramatic depictions of Columbus's shore party wading ashore but there are no real details of the boats and I suspect the illustrators of these pictures hadn't a clue about the boats. Maybe nobody does.

Edited November 24, 2015 by JerseyCity Frankie

[mtaylor]

Frankie,

 

As I recall, there's a couple of caravel builds here.. in the scratch area and the kit area.   There might be some info there.   PM Louie da Fly... as I recall ,  he's heavy into this era.

[Belco]

Planes of Santa Maria, there are as many as authors. At that time in Spain no plans were made, and were built according to the intuition of the "master of ax."
I put two images, one from the Museu Maritim de Barcelona a plan prepared at the beginning of the last century and a plan of an Italian author.

 

I hope you will be helpful.
 

 

Regards
 

 

Belco

[Dziadeczek]

Get yourself a book "The Ships of Christopher Columbus" by Xavier Pastor. It is from the series "Anatomy of the Ship".

Edited November 25, 2015 by Dziadeczek

[JerseyCity Frankie]

Searching the internet further I found this guys website where he is apparently building an archive of every instruction booklet plan he can find. There is an entire page just for Santa Maria:  http://soubory.radekshipmodels.cz/SouboryFOTO/plany-lodi/santa-marie/

[amateur]

Iguess that the boats would have been rather flat bottomed, and rounded (both fore and aft). The billings version is just their basic boat. My 20th century seagoing tug has the same ones......)

 

There used to be a build log of chuck passaro of the mayflower. That one has a very nice looking boat. I guess that you could use that shap also for the santa maria's boat.

With respect to the AaotS of the Santa Maria, I have the impressionthat all details that are not known were fillid in using English sources.

 

 

Jan

[jbshan]

If pressed, I would think your boat would more resemble the one in the second plan sheet.

[Louie da fly]

There are quite a few contemporary pictures of boats "of all nations" in Woodrat's carrack/Nave tonda build at http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/4915-venetian-carrack-or-nave-tonda-by-woodrat/?hl=%2Bnave+%2Btonda- scroll throug te pics and every so often there's a representation of a boat. Most of these are within 20 years or so either side of Columbus' voyage so you should be fairly sure you're on the money with them.

 

Steven

[Moonbug]

Good morning,

 

   Xavier's book is definitely what you're looking for.  Here is the cover, and what the plans for the launch look like.

 

- Bug

 

 

Edited December 22, 2015 by Moonbug

[amateur]

Now he doesn't need the book anymore

btw: what about copyright?

 

Jan

[Moonbug]

Hehe, good question Jan,

 

I'm not entirely familiar with the print world, but I am very familiar with broadcast copyright laws. Most of them - in particular with regard to damages - revolve around misuse of material for a profit or denying the original owner profit. So, I think for the most part we're ok here since its use is almost entirely informational. ;-)

 

-Bug

[capnharv2]

Moonbug,

 

If the author and/or company is interested in pursuing it, a case could be made for denying them profit since one less book was sold.

 

That being said, I don't think it makes business sense for them to pursue copyright infringement because somebody posted one page from one of their books

 

But I've been wrong before. . . .

 

Harvey

[mtaylor]

Copyright in the States does allow for "fair use".  The other thing is, Bug didn't put the image up at 100%.  So, this may or may not fall under that.  I'm asking a moderator/admin to take a look.

Edited December 26, 2015 by mtaylor

[JerseyCity Frankie]

In the event I wound up making some fairly generic boats, scaling and shaping them to the dumb drawing I had on the Billings Boats plan. I made them on a dummy wooden form, planking over the form with card stock, which I then painted after detailing. The keels are wood but everything else is paper. These are in a color that matches the existing trim color used by the original model builder.

[Moonbug]

 Nice, clean looking work Frankie.

 

- Bug