Santa Maria

Santa Maria, built in Spain previously known as La Gallega was one of the ship used by Christopher Columbus’s in his first voyage. Santa María was quite small about 100 tons just 17.7 m long on deck with three small masts and was used as the flagship for the expedition.

Columbus’ crew was mostly constituted of experienced seamen from the regions of Andalusia and  Galicia in northwest Spain and the expedition was mainly funded by a group of bankers.

María was not one of the fastest of Columbus’ vessels but succeeded in sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. However, they encountered an accident where the ship was carried onto a sandbank and sank near Cap-Haiti on December 1492. Due to extensive damage, she could not be repaired and Columbus salvaged the timbers from the ship to be used in the construction of a fort afterwards.

A replica of Santa Maria is known to have been built on the island of Madeira around 1998 and thousands have sailed on board.