Rigging Question for Revell 1/90 Santa Maria

This is a multifaceted question. Are we talking merchant ship or military? Mediterrainian or North Atlantic or somewhere in between. Also what years as sail evolved tremendously in the 15th century where ships went from essentially castled open cogs to the Great Ships like the Santa Catarina di Monte Sinai. Another big factor is how were the sails handled. Lets look at the ship then, the Santa Maria was a Mediterrainian merchant vessel designed for use in the warmer waters of the Mediterrainian Sea and the Spanish Atlantic. Ships of her kin likely had no footropes which didn't come about until the yard arms got so large they could no longer be hoisted up whenever they changed sail. To do so they would lower the main yard to the deck and add or remove sections of the sail depending on the weather. Ever wonder what the term to "shorten sail"came from? They would literally untie the lowest parts of the sail called bonnets if my memory is correct. Then reloft the yard with the smaller canvas. All this was done from the deck. Sailors would only go aloft to square away blocks or lines hugging the yard with their legs. Topsails if any would be handled from the crowsnests (tops)this tradition held out the longest in the north where foul weather made handling sail much safer than gripping the yard with hypothermic toes. As a result most small to medium ships still used the jacobs ladder right into the 16th century. It was the evolution of the very large ships like the Carracks and later the galleon the pushed the envelope in ship evolution. As ships got larger so did the sails and the rigging to hold and control them. No longer could the yards be hoisted up and down to be worked. Now the sailors had to go up onto the yards where the sail could be pulled up to the sailor who would tie portions of the sail to the yard using reefing lines sewn onto the sails. This is still how they do it today. But it wasnt until these larger ship handling practices came about that the ratlines became more common place. They evolved at the same time as the footropes from thwe need to get alot of sailors up and down quickly to manage the larger sails. So while you could model ratline for a ship of that era and local and tradition I would be more likely to think she used two jacobs ladders on each side of the masts going to the tops. Just my opinion, its your model so you get to decide which has more appeal. Good luck with it...I have the BIG Ertl Santa Maria laying around. Should try to find it ;-)

There are a lot of Santa Maria different drawings. I have 13 or 14 of them, don't remember right. Most competetive work, despite "versions" of Santa Maria, at my opinion, is allready mentioned book by X. Pastor.

Revell's Santa Maria is based on reconstruction by Julio F. Guillen (1927, as caravel). Todays naval historians say, that can be, that replica on reconstruction by Jose Maria Martinez - Hidalgo y Teran (1964, as nao) should be most alike real Santa Maria.

Of course. Despite books age, images are'nt copyrighted.

Title page:

http://postimage.org/image/2rf2st3t0/

Rigging:

http://postimage.org/image/2qlobju84/

Press "Full size" to see original picture.

Marius,

Can you post pictures of the rigging?

Bill

This book is:

Cezareo Fernandez Duro - La Nao Santa Maria - Memoria De La Comision Arquelogica Ejecutiva, 1892. I have copy of this book.

Another good: Heinrich Winter - Die Kolumbusschiffe von 1492, 1968

Every reference I've seen has shown the three ships with the rope ladders not ratlines on the shrouds.  I cannot remember the particular references, but I will check. 

Bill

This is a frequent topic of discussion and argument among nautical historians.  This was a transition between ratlines on shrouds and jacob's ladders.  The later were simple rope ladders from the rear of the top to the deck.  Some feel like none of the ships on the expedition were fancy state of the art ships and thus would have used the jacob's ladder.  There is a good book on Columbus's ships by a Spanish Admiral who ran their historic program- forget the name of the book, though.

I have a copy of The Ships of Christopher Columbus by Xavier Pastor. The diagrams show ratlines. There is even a drawing from 1509 showing ratlines on a similar ship.

Pete