I hope they manage to get the remains out of the water and put them on display.

(May 13, 2014 at 11:51 am)Minimalist Wrote: Right where Columbus said it was. D'uh.

Columbus said it was off the coast of India.

Close enough for government work.

(May 13, 2014 at 12:01 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Close enough for government work.

Almost as close as Malaysia airlines flight 370.

Why are they wasting time on this when we still haven't found Noah's ark???!??!??!

(May 13, 2014 at 12:18 pm)Tonus Wrote: Why are they wasting time on this when we still haven't found Noah's ark???!??!??!

Ah, but they HAVE found Noah's Ark!!

Multiple times.

Problem is, they keep losing it again.

When I was in FL in March they had the hand made replicas of the Nina and the Pinta at Ponce Inlet in New Smyrna Beach. No modern tools were used building them. It was really cool. I didn't realize it cost $8 until we were on board. I was kinda pissed until I talked with the crew. They are all volunteers, sailing adventure style with the two boats. It sounded like a lot of fun. I had an impulse to be irresponsible and sign up!

There was a certain cognitive dissonance that I experienced. My whole life, I had this idea of these huge Spanish Galleons that Columbus mightily sailed across the Atlantic with. I don't know where it came from, and I certainly know enough about history to know that there were no huge ships then. But my internal image of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria are these majestic ships.

They are not. Standing on the Nina, it was this tiny little caravel. 65 feet long. Crew slept on the deck. A tiller for a rudder. The Pinta is slightly larger, but not by much. Columbus hated the Santa Maria, he said it sailed like a pig. It, too, was a tiny little nao, a trading vessel.

Even Nelson's Victory, one of the largest ships in the world 300 years after Columbus, and home to a crew of 800, was still unbelieveably small to modern maritime sensibilities.

The victory was only as long as a typical modern big containership is wide.

(May 13, 2014 at 12:41 pm)Chuck Wrote: Even Nelson's Victory, one of the largest ships in the world 300 years after Columbus, and home to a crew of 800, was still unbelieveably small to modern maritime sensibilities.

The victory was only as long as a typical modern big containership is wide.

Put in another perspective, the flight deck of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is large enough to accommodate at least a dozen ships-of-the-line like HMS Victory, perhaps more.