Santa Maria

Santa Maria[1:760] with a $1 coin

Christopher Columbus felt that he could find a path to India and the East Indies by sailing west. His European contemporaries found this utterly absurd, because the world was flat back then, but he convinced the Catholic Monarch of Spain, tempted to partake in the lucrative Spice Trade between Europe and India, to sponsor his expedition.

He sailed on the this medium-sized carrack across the Atlantic and ended up in the Carribean. One thing led to another and now the United States of America is the most powerful country in the world.

This ship facilitated the discovery of the Americas by the Europeans, which is one of the most significant events in the Medieval Epoch of the world, whose repercussions have had an impact on nearly everyone on Earth. So, I decided to make a model of the Santa Maria.

The model of the ship has been scaled down 760 times, and is 2.5cm in length. The hulk is made of entirely of paper, and the sails out of cotton. This ship was exceptionally challenging for me to make as I had to use a needle dipped in red paint to paint the Cross on the sails. I intended to add threads linking the masts and the hull, as rope was used in the ship, but I couldn’t procure any that was thin enough.