Floating Museum Drops Anchor in Pittsburgh
Washington, PA Observer-Reporter
5 November 2009
By Scott Beveridge, Staff writer
sbeveridge@observer-reporter.com
PITTSBURGH - The cramped below decks of Christopher Columbus' famous
ships - the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria - were reserved for a cargo of
live, smelly animals and not fit for human occupation.
The cows, chickens and pigs would provide a year's worth of food for
the crew on their maiden discovery voyage to the New World five
centuries ago.
"There was a reason (sailors) slept on the deck," said Steve Sanger, a
first mate on replicas of the Nina and Pinta that docked Tuesday along
the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh.
These days, it's still "dark and stuffy" in the ships' bellies where
the crews sleep as the floating museums travel the Western Hemisphere
for the Columbus Foundation, Sanger said Wednesday.
Since their arrival, schoolchildren have been crowding these two ships
that most visitors discover to be much smaller than they expected, he
said.
The British Virgin Islands-based foundation wanted to also build the
Santa Maria in time for the 1992 celebration of Columbus' historic
voyage, but the project ran out of money, Sanger said.
The Nina was built first in 1986 as an exact replica of the original by
eighth-generation shipwrights in Brazil. It's the only place in the
world where such boats are still made by hand as they were in Columbus'
time.
The boat has 65-foot keel, a length confirmed through a receipt that
still exists of the sale of the original boat in 1503, Sanger said.
That length provided enough information for the boat builders to
re-create the ship as a Caravel, a style that was commonly used in the
15th century for warships, patrol boats and trading vessels, said
Sanger, who has worked aboard these boats for four years.
The Pinta was built a bit larger than the original, and both are
stained black to simulate how the originals looked coated with pine tar.
Maybe it's best the Santa Maria wasn't rebuilt because she sank on her
modern voyage near present-day Haiti, a crew member said.
The two ships still sail using wind power, but they also were built
with diesel engines to boost their power. Instead of the crews having
to rely on the stars for navigation, they are afforded the luxury of
having radar, global positioning systems, the Internet and lights to
guide them.
The first 75-ton Nina carried a crew of 27 men when it made four trips
across the Atlantic Ocean. The average age of the sailors then was 16,
Sanger said.
He said the sleeping quarters for the modern crew is just 4 feet high.
"You're always either sitting or crawling," Sanger said.
But, he said, the travel is fun and exciting, except for the time the
Nina almost capsized in a sudden storm in the Puget Sound off the coast
of Washington.
The ships are docked beside Heinz Field and open for tours from 9 a.m.
to 4 p.m. daily until they shove off Nov. 15 and head down the Ohio
River to the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico for the winter.