Pinta and Maria Docked
by Wild Thing
Title
Pinta and Maria Docked
Artist
Wild Thing
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Every few years, these wonderful replicas of the ships of Columbus, the Pinta & Maria dock in Winona, Minnesota for people to board and tour. It's fascinating to see these small ships that crossed the Atlantic to come to a new world. You marvel that they made it all given that they had no technology such as they do today. The ships seem large, but in actuality, are small given the voyage they had to make and the crew and supplies they had to carry. It is fun to stand on the deck and imagine yourself as part of the crew setting out to find new lands, people and treasures.
Replicas of Columbus' ships dock in Winona - Winona Daily News July 23, 2010
Columbus used the stars. They use GPS. Columbus' crew slept on deck. They sleep below. Columbus and his men were on the sea for 50 days at time. They dock in a new port every few days.
The Columbus Foundation's crew on the Pinta and Nina may not suffer as their predecessors did, but their ships are the closest replicas currently sailing the ocean blue. Or, for a few weeks this summer, the Mississippi River.
The Pinta and Nina set sail in March from Gulf Shores, Ala., and made 15 stops on their way to dock Thursday afternoon in Winona.
The scale-size Nina has a 65-foot-long deck and is the most accurate copy of Columbus' beloved ship ever built, according to Archaeology Magazine. Its traveling companion, the Pinta, is a little bit bigger than scale, with an 85-foot-long deck.
"People always ask about pirates," Pinta senior deckhand Bradley Johnson said. "The ships were covered in tar, so since they're black, people think they're sinister."
Not a single one of the seven crew members is a pirate, but the members do gain their sea legs over time. Volunteer Dave Balog, a retired electrician from Indiana, is on a three-week trip with the ships.
"It wasn't on my bucket list," Balog said. "But I didn't know you could put something like this on the bucket list. When my wife saw (that people could volunteer), she said �This is you!'"
Johnson has been on the boat for nearly a year; Pinta first mate Stephen Sanger has been on the ship for more than two years.
"I do this for my love of being out on the water," he said. "Also traveling and seeing different places."
This is his first time this far up the Mississippi. It hasn't been easy.
The crew encountered severe storms just before coming to Winona and ran ashore, breaking off the two wooden arms that held their dinghy, a smaller boat the Pinta carries with it.
"Although we smash side to side, we right ourselves every time," Johnson said. "It beats us up, but the ship is just fine."
Both ships have survived the area's rainy season and are now tethered to Levee Park with ropes as thick as the crew's wrists. The only rocking the crew needs to worry about now is when tourists board the ships during the next 10 days.
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August 6th, 2015
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Comments (1)
Randy Rosenberger
Love the beauty of this piece and the quality and care that went into its composition! It is my pleasure to PROMOTE this piece of beauty on our FEATURED ARTWORK section of the Wisconsin Flowers and Scenery group. Thanks for sharing! Liked & faved Randy B. Rosenberger (admin of WFS group)