Pinta (ship)
Replica of Pinta, in Palos de la Frontera
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Castile
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| Name: | Unknown (see nickname) |
| Launched: | 1441(?) |
| Nickname(s): | 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 Pint (liquid measure), 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 Pinta on 12 October 1492. The owner of 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.
Pinta was a caravel-type vessel. By tradition Spanish ships were named after saints and usually given nicknames. Thus, Pinta, like Niña, was not the ship's actual name. The actual name of 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.
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 Niña (real name Santa Clara) and Santa María. There are no known contemporary likenesses of Columbus's ships.
Santa María (also known as Gallega) was the largest, of a type known as a carrack (carraca in Spanish), or by the Portuguese term nau. Niña and 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".
Niña, Pinta, and Santa María were not the largest ships in Europe at the time. They were small trade ships surpassed in size by ships like Great Michael, built in Scotland in 1511 with a length of 73.2 m (240 ft), and a crew of 300 sailors, 120 gunners, and up to 1,000 soldiers. Peter von Danzig of the Hanseatic League was built in 1462 and was 51 m (167 ft) long. Another large ship, the English carrack Grace Dieu, was built during the period 1420–1439, was 66.4 m (218 ft) long, and weighed between 1,400 tons and 2,750 tons. Ships built in Europe in the fifteenth century were designed to sail the Mediterranean sea and the Atlantic ocean coastlines. Columbus' smaller-sized ships were considered riskier on the open ocean than larger ships. This made it difficult to recruit crew members, and a small number were jailed prisoners given a lighter sentence if they would sail with Columbus.
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