La Pinta
Replica of La Pinta, in Palos de la Frontera
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Castile
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| Name: | Unknown (see nickname) |
| Launched: | 1441(?) |
| Nickname(s): | La Pinta |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Caravel |
| Tons burthen: | 60–70 tons |
| Length: | 17 m (56 ft) on deck |
| Beam: | 5.36 m (17.6 ft) |
| Draught: | 2.31 m (7.6 ft) |
| Propulsion: | sail |
| Complement: | 26 |
La Pinta (Spanish for The Painted One , The Look, or The Spotted One ) was the fastest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first transatlantic voyage in 1492. The New World was first sighted by Rodrigo de Triana aboard La Pinta on 12 October 1492. The owner of La Pinta was Cristobal Quintero. The Quintero brothers were ship owners from Palos. The owner of the ship allowed Martin Alonso Pinzon to take over the ship so he could keep an eye on the ship.
La Pinta was a caravel-type vessel. By tradition Spanish ships were named after saints and usually given nicknames. Thus, La Pinta, like La Niña, was not the ship's actual name; La Niña's actual name was the Santa Clara. The Santa María's original name was La Gallega. The actual original name of La Pinta is unknown. The origin of the ship is disputed but is believed to have been built in Spain in the year 1441. It was later rebuilt for use by Christopher Columbus.
La Pinta was square rigged and smaller than Santa María. The ship weighed approximately 60 tons with an estimated deck length of 17 meters (56 ft) and a width of 5.36 meters (17.6 ft). The crew size was 26 men under Captain Martín Alonso Pinzón.
The other ships of the Columbus expedition were La Niña (real name Santa Clara) and Santa María. There are no known contemporary likenesses of Columbus's ships.
Santa María (also known as the Gallega) was the largest, of a type known as a carrack (carraca in Spanish), or by the Portuguese term nau. La Niña and La Pinta were smaller. They were called caravels, a name then given to the smallest three-masted vessels. Columbus once used it for a vessel of forty tons, but it generally applied in Portuguese or Spanish use to a vessel ranging one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty Spanish "toneles". This word represents a capacity about one-tenth larger than that expressed by the modern English "ton".
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Wikipedia