Santa Maria - Flagship caravel of Christopher Columbus

A model built by Oreste Schianchi

Part One

In these days I had the opportunity to host at my house a model of a dear friend ship modeller. The model is back from Hobby Model Expo, an exposition which was held a few days ago at Novegro, near the airport of Linate (Milan, Italy) and presented by the Ship Modeling Association Magellano, in its stand.

The author, Oreste Schianchi, at the time of the exposition was injured due to a bone fracture. He Lives in Bresso, a town near Milan and is a member of Magellano, always present every Monday at the Magellano Point of Cusano Milanino, another town near his home.

As Oreste does not have a personal computer and is therefore not in a position to "advertise" his work, I took the opportunity, with his consent, coming from the availability of the model with me, to produce a photographic cluster of about fifty images that portray the ship of Columbus in many viewpoints.

The images will be posted a little at a time in this thread. What I absolutely can not do is describe the images with "intelligent comments", having no knowledge of the process used by Oreste for its construction. So, instead of writing words I'll just let the pictures speak, limiting myself to very short comments.

Good vision. Jack.Aubrey


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Part Two

The wood used is pine (or perhaps fir) and beech. No type of paint and/or oil was used.

This model, if I remember correctly, should be in scale 1: 50/1: 48 and represents one of the three versions that can be traced back to this ship:
- the first, as nao, is a replica of Fernandez-Hard (also called Adamèz),
- the second, as caravel, is a replica of Guillen and
- the third, as nao, is attributed to the historical reconstructions of Martinez-Hidalgo.

However, these are interpretations only as there is NOTHING historically accurate to determine 100% how the Santa Maria actually was.

This model would belong to the Adamèz version. The length of the hull is approximately cm. 57. The right hand side is, as you can see from the pictures, fully planked, while the left side is open and you can see the internal details.

And now enjoy the next five images, taken from the right side:

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Jack

A very nice update. I was going to ask if there was any finish used on this one. I see you mention oil being used - very nice result indeed as it appears to have left all of the woods in very original looking colours.

Lovely model and very nice way of displaying it

Part Four

And here below other images of "Santa Maria".

A view of the forecastle . .

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And finally a nice view of the poop, where you can judge the open windows and the lantern . .

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Here begin some views of the model from the open side . .

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An overall view . .

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And a midship view of the port side . . to note the map where Cristophe wrote the path for the Americas.

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Part Five

New images of Oreste's model . .

An overall view of the port side, from where you can see the internal fittings . .

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Here is the Christophe's bed and his sword, hanged at the mizzen mast . .

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The galley stove and the pumps . .

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The horizontal capstan . .

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other small fittings . .

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Beautiful Build Some real craftsmanship there.

Steve

Thanks for your graceful appreciations, I'll report them to Oreste as soon as possible.

Part Seven

Ops . . I forgot I had again some other images of this model from Oreste. Still interesting to watch.

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Regards, Jack.

Almost finished . .

Part Eight

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Thanks a lot, I'll provide your feedback to my friend Oreste, Jack.

Part Nine

This is the last batch of images . . here it is possible to watch the model inside its display case (plexiglass) . .

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I close here this topic, at least from my viewpoint, having finished to publish all the images I have about this Oreste's model.

I hope you all appreciated them . . I'm available to continue writing for this topic by answering to your question, when needed.

Regards. Jack.Aubrey