REDISCOVERING COLUMBUS by Peter Columbus was at sea, fortunate man. Heading south and east for the Canary Islands, 660 miles away, he evidently began writing his famous lost Diario, or journal. We know this document by an abstract compiled by Bartolome de las Casas a Spanish bishop and not uncritical admirerofColumbus who also wrote a history of the West Indies in which he sharply took his hero to task for his attitudes toward the Indians. There are also rather loose casual references in the biography of the Navigator written by hi s second (illegitimate) son, Ferdinand, who sailed with his father in his later voyaging, and who had a copy of the original, probably later sold off by improvident heirs. The passage from Spain to the Canaries, off the bulge of West Africa, is typically a lively, windy one, and it is reasonable to imagine Columbus bracing himself to his writing in his swaying cabin high in the poop of the Santa Maria , with a certain sense of mi ss ion , prohahly writing in the night hours. Las Casa gives us a verbatim transcript of his introduction to the voyage. Addressed to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, it begins: "Whereas, most Christian and Very Noble and Very Excellent and Very Powerful Princes, King and Queen of the Spains and of the Islands of the Sea, our Lords: Thi s present year 1492, after Your Highnesses had brought to an end the war with the Moors who ruled in Europe and had concluded the war in the very great city of Granada, where this present year on the second day of the month of January I saw ... the Moorish King come out to the gates of the city and kiss the Royal Hands of Your Highnesses and of the Prince my Lord; and later in that same month, because of the report that I had given to Your Hi ghnesses about the lands ofindia and about a prince who is called ' Grand Khan,' which means in our Spanish language ' King of Kings' ... you thought of sending me, Cristobal Colon, to the said regions of India to see the said princes and the people and the lands, and the characteristics of the lands and of everything, and to see how their conversion to our Holy Faith might be undertaken ." The exalted language (somewhat abbreviated here) was customary in addressing sovereigns, of course, likewi se the conventional dedication of the effort to the advance of the Christian faith. But hold on, reader, and reflect with me: Columbus really felt this exalted purpose in hi s sailing, as is evident in everything he said and did . And he believed conversion to the Christian faith was a necessary step in what we would call the progress of mankind. And beyond these very evident things in hi s message, note his desire to learn " the characteristics of the lands and of everything." In this practical vein, he observes: " And you commanded that I should not go to the East by land, which is the customary way to go, but by the route to the West, by which route we do not know for certain that anyone previously has passed." It is typically a boi sterous passage to the Canaries, as we've noted, and this passage was no exception. It was to try ships and men in minor ways that showed up some strains within the fleet-strains quickly patched over, however. In rough seas the Pinta' s rudder became unshipped, "jumping" (as Columbus's journal puts it) out of its gudgeons. Columbus brought the Santa Maria over to the helpless caravel to consult with Martin Alonso Pinzon. He could not lay the Santa Maria alongside to help with hoisting the heavy 16
Stanford rudder back into place, due to the sea that kept both ships leaping about. So he left Pinzon to deal with the problem, observing in his journal that "Martin Alonso Pinzon was a man of energy and ingenuity"-the last praise he was to give thi s able but difficult man. While Columbus was aboard the Pinta , Pinzon told him a curious story-that he believed Pinta's owner, Cristobal Quintero, had disabled the rudder out of resentment at having hi s ship taken for the voyage. To any sailor thi s seems a most unlikely tale; if the rudder couldn't be repaired, the owner risked losing his vessel and perhaps his life-and if it could be made good, the voyage would simply continue. But the story did shed li ght on some underlying tensions in the fleet. By the following day, August 7, the Pinta had her rudder repaired and the fleet bore off again for the Canaries. The Pinta 's rudder gave more trouble, however, and she began to leak. By dawn on August 9, the main island, Grand Canary, was in sight. But it was calm and remained so for the next few days-a little frustrating after the fine passage that they ' d made so far. At evening on the third day a breeze canie in. Columbus had Pinzon take the Pinta into Las Pal mas on Grand Canary, the main port then as it is today . There she could best make her needed repairs. The Nina and Santa Maria proceeded on to Gomera, further east in the island chain. On the evening of August 12, they came to anchor at the port of San Sebastian in Gomera, where Columbus hoped to find the spirited young Beatriz de Pereza y Bobadilla, widow of the island 's governor, a noted beauty said to have been sent away from the court in Spain because of King Ferdinand's excessive interest in her. She was away on business in Lanzarote at the other, eastern end of the island chain. They waited nine days for her, then sailed back to Las Palmas in Grand Canary. The shipwrights of the fleet now set to work with a will, rebuilding Pinta's rudder with the help of the iron foundry in Las Palmas, which forged the very heavy iron fittings. The rudder is the most vulnerable part of a ship. Modem ocean racers use stocks and fittings of titanium , the strongest metal known , but sti ll rudders break and are carried away. Columbus had thought of exchanging the problem-ridden Pinta for a ship ofDofia Beatriz, but now he put this thought aside, concentrating on getti ng the Pinta ready for the westward push into an unknown ocean. Pinta was recaulked and overhauled, and Nina got a new rig with a new rigging plan. Using the masting, cordage and gear of the three-masted lateen rig she 'd had up to then , they set up a conventional square rig, with powerful main squaresai l amidships, preceded by a smaller square foresail and followed by a small lateen mizzen . This meant switching all the masts aro und and stepping them in new locations-no small task! As Columbus aptly observed, it was done " that she might follow the other vessels with more tranquillity and less danger." "More tranquillity" puts it nicely. The soaring lateen mainsail with its 100-foot free-swinging yard tended to drive the ship up into broaching with a strong wind, and using the helm to fight this tendency not only put undue strain on the rudder, but ri sked instantly gybing the ship if there were a flaw in the wind. And because stays on a lateen-rigged mast can be set up only on the windward side, a bad gybe can take the mast right out of the ship. By contrast, her new sq uare mainsail was set right across the wind, with no tendency to drive the ship up into it. And the mast was permanently and strongly stayed on both sides. SEA HISTORY 56, WINTER 1990
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