The Nao Santa Maria Heading Up to Bay City

Last weekend was the tall ships festival in Bay City.  I was hoping that I would catch some of them heading up that way.  As I was checking Marine Traffic on Tuesday, I saw that I would have a chance to catch at least two of them as the last group of ships leaving Cleveland was doing about 4 knots up the St Clair River.

 The leader of that group of ships was the Nao Santa Maria which is a replica of the ship that Christopher Columbus used in his expedition to the Americas.

 On August 3rd of 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail on the Santa Maria.  He led a little fleet composed of his ship and the Pinta and Nina.  They were trying to find a western route to Asia.  At the time, the known routes were either land routes through the Middle East or a seat route that sailed around Africa.  Christopher Columbus figured that there would be a way west to Asia.  He didn't count on a new continent being in the way.
If he had access to some of the research done by the Ancient Greeks, he would have realized that the Earth was much bigger and that there might be a continent in the way.  But we wont hold that against him.

 On October 12, 1492, he landed on what is now an island of the Bahamas.  He would later visit Cuba and Hispaniola.  Later he would make three voyages to the Americas.  Eventually, it was figured out that a new continent was found and we know the rest.

 This particular Nao Santa Maria is an almost exact replica of Columbus' ship and is based on the information they could find.  She is 28 meters long by 8 meters wide.  That is about a 10th of the length of the Paul R. Tregurtha.

I was not expecting to see this ship but I knew by seeing it that I would see the other two.