Peter F. Copeland, "The Sailors of Palos," American History
Illustrated, Vol XXVII, Number 1,  March/April 93, pp.
 
     When Christopher Columbus's two surviving ships arrived back
in Europe from the New World in March 1493, the Admiral of the
Ocean Sea returned to lasting but troubled fame.  But the
mariners who had accompanied him across unknown seas and through
storm and shipwreck remained virtually forgotten to history.
Here an artist-historian tells us who some of these sailors were
and what their seafaring lives were like.
 
     It was early March 1493, and the great voyage was nearly
over.  Enroute back to Spain from the far-off Indies, the storm-
beaten Nina, flagship of Christopher Columbus, had put into
Lisbon.  Her consort, the original flagship Santa Maria - or what
was left of her - lay shattered on reef off the island of
Hispaniola.
     The Nina's sailors were at work, repairing and renewing
their weathered ship, and anticipating a speedy return to Spain
and their home port of Palos.  They had little time to speculate
on the fate of the Pinta, the sister caravel last seen one stormy
night a month before in mid-ocean.  There was much to be done.  A
new set of sails must be laid out, cut, and sewn.  Running
rigging must be renewed; standing rigging needed repair.  Already
shoreside carpenters were measuring and sawing aloft and on deck,
while caulkers worked at sealing the leaky hull.  Other sailors
turned-to clean and wash down the hold.  Soon they would load
sacks and barrels of stones from the banks of the River Tagus, to
be packed as ballast in the now lightly laden vessel.
     Within a few days, news of Columbus's epochal seven-month
voyage and discovery of a sea route across the Western Ocean to
the Indies and far Cathay would begin to reverberate across
Portugal and Spain, and indeed be trumpeted throughout Europe.
Greeted as a hero by all who heard of his enterprise, the admiral
already basked in his celebrity.  It was, at least for the
moment, everything for which the determined explorer could hope.
 
     Columbus returned to Europe in 1493 to lasting but troubled
fame for achievements that still cast an imposing shadow today,
five hundred years later.  But what of the nearly ninety officers
and sailors who accompanied him across unknown seas, enduring
storm and shipwreck?  Unlike Columbus, his mariners have passed
the succeeding centuries in virtual obscurity.  Who were these
sailors and what were their lives like - both in port and during
their odyssey of discovery.
     Most of the men and boys who signed on for the Voyage of
discovery during the summer of 1492 came from Palos and the other
seaside towns and villages of Andalusia in southern Spain.  A
few, however, were Basques and Gallicians from the northern part
of the country, and five - a Portuguese, a Venetian, a Calabrian,
and two Genoese - were foreigners.
     The crewmen ranged in age and experience from seasoned
veterans of the sea accustomed to the rigors of shipboard life to
youths no older than twelve years of age.  They included skilled
specialists such as boatswains, carpenters, caulkers, coopers,
gunners, pilots, stewards, and surgeons, as well as untrained
boys.
     Legend suggests that Columbus's sailors were criminals and
convicts dragooned for a desperate enterprise, but in fact only
one man among them was a convicted murderer.  He and two cohorts
were pardoned on condition of volunteering to serve.  the vast
majority of sailors joined the expedition - after initial
hesitation - for the adventure of the voyage and the hope of
gaining riches in the far-off Indies.
 
     Strange and picturesque to the shorefolk he encountered, the
seaman of Columbus's time lived apart in his own world of ships
and seaports.  he has been to distant lands and seen fascinating
sights.  he wore odd clothes and spoke a language that sounded
peculiar and sometimes even incomprehensible.
     To landsmen unfamiliar with the fifteenth-century sailors'
world, the bustling seaports he frequented must have seemed
exciting and exotic places.  In many harbors the waterfront
itself was called the "lowere city" and sometimes was separated
by a tall wooden palisade from the rest of the town - the "upper
city" - where dwelt the merchants and well-to-do tradesmen.
     This lower city - with its population of fisherfolk,
chandlers, peddlers, shipwrights, rogues, slatterns, and drunks -
was a place of noise and smells and mud.  Packs of half-wild dogs
roamed through the narrow, filthy alleys that led down to the
ships.  The air was filled with the raw stench of hides, fish,
and sewage and the sounds of  wine vendors, soap sellers, and
other street peddlers crying their wares.  Here, too, one might
hear the chanted prayers of a blackrobed priest - his pious
petitions for the mariners laboring on the seas occasionally
interrupted by songs and shouts emanating from nearby taverns.
     The waterfront itself was crowded with merchants, beggars,
sailors, and itinerant laborers looking for odd jobs.  Ships at
the quayside loaded and discharged such cargoes as fish, salt,
oil, grain, wine, and hides.  Windlasses cracked and groaned as
gangs of chantey-singing sailors, clad only in wide-bottomed
underdrawers, strained at the capstan bars.
     Some of the vessels anchored in the harbor or tied alongside
the wharves might have hailed from such far-off places as Denmark
and Egypt.  Most were lateen-rigged caravels built in western
Andalusia - familiar sights along the shores of Spain, Portugal,
and throughout the Mediterranean.
     A large three-masted deep-sea ship loading horses through a
side-port opening also might be seen on the waterfront, tied up
alongside tiny coastal trading vessels manned by crews of two men
each, or near a fishing boat newly arrived from iceland and
deeply laden with cargo of dried codfish.  here also might be a
ship-of-war, with banners fluttering from her fore and aft
castles, taking aboard chests of arms and casks of salt-meat and
wine.
 
     Columbus's flagship Santa Maria was a Gallician-built nao -
a round-bellied, three-master, square-rigged former merchantman
of the type commonly seen in the mediterranean.  Heavy and
unwieldy, she measured about eighty-five feet long, had a beam of
thirty feet, and displaced more than one hundred tons.  Columbus
called her "a dull sailor, and unfit for discovery."  During the
voyage of discovery the Santa Maria shipped a crew of forty men
and boys.
     The Nina and Pinta both were caravels, small, lightly-built,
broad-bowed vessels that had begun life as lateen-rigged ships
with no square sails - typical Mediterranean rig.  Both
ultimately were re-rigged as caravela redondas, with square sails
on the fore and mainmasts, and lateen sails on their mizzens.
The nina had a fourth mast aft of the mizzen, called a
bonaventura mast, upon which was shipped a smaller lateen sail;
it is possible that the Pinta did also.  The Nina was about
sixty-seven feet long, with a beam of twenty-one feet; tradition
tells us that the Pinta was somewhat larger.  The Nina carried a
crew of twenty-four men and boys, and the Pinta shipped twenty-
six crewmen.
     A typical merchant ship of the era was described as a "grim
and dark city, full of bad odors, filth, and uncomfortable living
conditions."  At sea the vessel's masts and hull creaked and
groaned continually as, with her short keel and round bilges, she
pitched and rolled heavily even in a moderate sea.  Built with
timber from the high Pyrenees, Columbus's ships were fastened
with wooden pegs and hand-wrought iron spikes, and they leaked
like weathered wash-tubs.
 
     The captain of a Spanish ship of the fifteenth century was
commander of the vessel and crew, but not necessarily a seaman.
He might be a military officer of the crown, a member of a noble
family, or, like Columbus, the holder of a Royal Commission that
in Columbus's case declared him "Captain General" of the fleet as
well as captain of the Santa Maria.
     Second to the captain in line of command stood the master -
the man who actually supervised the operation of the ship.  He
was an experienced seaman in overall charge of each day's
sailing, getting the vessel underway, stowing cargo. and
anchoring.  Sometimes the master also was the ship's captain;
occasionally he was its owner as well.
     Below the master was the first mate or pilot (piloto in
Spanish), the navigation officer responsible to the master for
the operation of the ship and the work of the seamen.  He was,
ideally, an experienced ship handler, wise in the ways of the
weather, the tides, and the sea.  the pilot brought aboard with
him such navigational materials as charts, compass, sandglasses,
astrolabe or quadrant, and sounding leads.  Both master and pilot
received a rate of pay about twice that of the sailors.
     The Santa Maria, as flagship of columbus's expedition,
carried several additional officials to fulfill special
assignments.  There was an interpreter to converse with the
Asians the explorer expected to meet; a secretary of the fleet to
record the discovery of new lands that might be found and
claimed; and two royal agents to note expenses and take charge of
the Crown's portion of any treasure recovered.  There were also a
comptroller of the fleet and a silversmith.
     Also serving aboard the Santa Maria was the alguazil de la
armada, or marshal of the ship.  These men were responsible for
maintaining discipline and administering punishment as required.
     A surgeon aboard each vessel served the medical needs of the
crew, and a steward was responsible for the food stores,
firewood, water, and wine.  the steward saw to trimming and
maintaining lamps and tending the fires over which hot meals were
prepared.
     Equal in rank with the steward was the boatswain, who led
the seamen in their daily tasks and who reported to the mate.
The boatswain carried out the orders of the master and mate in
the stowing cargo; he continually inspected masts, spars,
rigging, and sails for wear and repair; and he had charge of all
the ship's cable and lines.  He also was responsible for keeping
the deck clean and shipshape; for maintaining the good condition
of the ship's boat; and for making sure that the galley fire was
put out each night.
     Next below the steward and boatswain were the ship's petty
officers, or oficiales - sailors who practiced special trades
such as carpentry, caulking, or cooperage.  The caulker,
responsible for keeping the deck and hull watertight, had a store
of rope yarn, oakum, tallow, oil, pitch, scupper nails and lead
sheets for stopping leaks.  he also was in charge of the ship's
pumps.  The cooper had the important job of making up, caulking,
and repairing the ship's casks and barrels, buckets, tubs,
hogsheads, and other such wooden containers - all vital for the
storage of water, wine, and oil.
     Next in this shipboard hierarchy were the experienced seamen
or marineros, and finally, at the bottom, the apprentices and
boys or grumetes.  There were twenty-six watch-standing sailors
aboard the Santa Maria, fourteen aboard the Nina, and fifteen
aboard the Pinta.
 
     Columbus was captain of the Santa Maria as well as admiral
of the fleet.  The ship's owner, Juan de la Cosa, sailed as
master, with Peralonso Nino as his mate.  Juan Sanchez was
surgeon, and Pedro de Terreros was Columbus's personal steward.
diego do Arana was marshal of the fleet, and Rodrigo de Escobedo
was secretary or escrivano of the armada.  Luis de Torres, a
converted Jew, was the official interpreter.  He spoke Hebrew,
Aramaic, and some Arabic.
     Thirty-year-old Vicente Yanez Pinzon was captain of the
Nina, and Juan Nino was master.  Sancho Ruiz de Gama served as
pilot; Bartolome Garcia was the boatswain; and Alonso de Moguer
was surgeon.
     Martin Alonzo Pinzon - brother of Vicente - was captain of
the Pinta, and his other brother Francisco Martin Pinzon sailed
as master.  Cristobal Garcia Sarmiento was pilot, and Juan
Quintero was boatswain.  Garcia Fernandez was steward, and a man
named Diego was surgeon.
     Most of the ordinary seamen and apprentices whose names
appeared on the rosters of Columbus's ships were listed only by
their first name and place of origin.  among those assigned to
the Santa Maria, for example, was a boy known to us only  as
Juan, who was listed as a servant.  Juan could have been a ship's
boy, an apprentice seaman, or the personal servant of one of the
officials aboard the ship.  Probably coming from a village in
Andalusia, he may have been recommended by a brother or cousin
among the members of the crew.  His parents could have been
peasants who worked the stony coastal land, or possibly
fisherfolk.  In any case, the social standing of Juan's family
would have been very near the bottom of medieval society.
 
     The average seafarer of Columbus's time was illiterate,as
were the great majority of people ashore.  His life expectancy
was short due to his exposure to the perils of the sea, warfare,
and waterfront life.  Accustomed to coping with primitive
conditions, he was tough and cynical, with not much respect for
the law but a realistic fear of the strong arm of authority.
     Sailors are mentioned briefly here and thee in the
reminiscences of travelers of the medieval world - ship's
passengers, pilgrims, merchants, and clerics.  They also appear
in some of the works of authors and playwrights of the day.  In
his Canterbury Tales, fourteenth-century writer Geoffrey Chaucer
described a "shipman" who was traveling to the shrine to make a
votive offering, perhaps in obedience to a vow made in time of
peril on the sea.  The sailor's rough and homely attire, his
awkwardness on horseback, his weather-beaten complexion, and his
seafaring speech made him a subject of jest to his fellow
pilgrims.  He nevertheless was a jovial and welcome companion for
the travelers and "certainly he was a good felawe."
     Medieval seamen also appeared in a morality play given by
the Guild of Shipwrights for the pageant of Corpus Christi in
London in the year 1415.  Portrayed as being distinctly different
from shore folk, the sailors were distinguished by the "quaint
expressions of their profession," their rough and boisterous
humor, and their contempt for the soft and sheltered life of
their shoreside cousins.
 
     Superstitious, as so many seafarers through the ages have
been, the typical sailor of Columbus's time deeply believed in
omens and portents of doom.  He accepted the existence of
gigantic sea monsters that lived far out in the depths of the
unknown ocean.  He looked with a child's eyes upon odd things
seen in far places and had a great faith in the miraculous.
Anything that frightened him or seemed unexplainable, he believed
to be of supernatural origin.  If a strange bird alighted upon
his ship, he took it as an unfavorable omen; and he feared the
presence on board of a priest or woman as a sure way to raise up
the devil.  One medieval ocean traveler recalled that "during the
night hours when the wind was high, the sailors would think they
could hear sirens singing, wailing and jeering, like insolent men
in their cups."
     Columbus's sailors were as superstitious as any.  They had
been skeptical and uneasy about this voyage of exploration to the
far Indies.  There were old-timers among them who had sailed down
the African coast to guinea and out into the Western Ocean to the
Canary islands and the Azores.  They knew that the Portuguese had
sailed far reaches of the Atlantic in quest of the mythical
islands of Brazil, Antilla of the Seven Cities, and the fabled
isles of St. Brendan, but without success.
     The same circumstances that made the sailor prone to
superstition tended to make him more religious than his kinfolk
ashore.  his religious convictions conformed to a deeply devout
though violent and authoritarian period.  The cruelty and
amorality of his time did not shake his belief in the existence
of an avenging deity or in the strict authority of the Holy
Church.
 
     Although lacking in formal education, the able-bodied sailor
of the fifteenth century was proficient at the peculiar skills of
his trade through years of apprenticeship.  he had to be able to
steer at the tiller, splice line, caulk seams, make and mend
sails, take accurate soundings, and be adept at small-boat
handling.  He was required, among his other duties, to work at
loading and discharging the ship's cargo and to make and take in
sail in all weather.  He had to be familiar with the process of
weighing and letting go the anchors and of securing them when
brought aboard.  He also had to be fairly skilled at rough
carpentry and to be practiced in the use of weapons and in
gunnery, for he would be called upon to defend his hip in time of
need.  Hardy and strong, he was as agile as a monkey; when going
aloft he often climbed hand-over-hand up the lines of the
standing rigging.
     The sailors of Columbus proved as talented as any in the
skills of the marinero.  Before the expedition departed from the
Canary Islands on its outbound voyage, Columbus decided to
convert the Nina from a lateen to a square reg.  With no
shipyards or skilled artisans available, Captain Pinzon chose a
gang from among the ship's own crew to do the job, which included
cutting and sewing new sails for the fore and main yards.  The
work began on August 26, and the Nina was ready to sail just
three days later.  It is a tribute to Columbus's sailors that the
only complaint voiced by the admiral about poor workmanship
concerned the shipwrights of Palos, whose faculty caulking caused
the Nina and Pinta to leak badly.
 
     The clothing of Columbus's sailors was simple and their
possessions few.  Typical garb consisted of wide-bottomed knee-
length breeches; a loose-fitting hooded blouse of coarse linen or
old sail cloth; and, perhaps, a sleeveless vest-like overgarment
slit at the sides and tied with laces.  Although the sailor
sometimes wore stockings and shoes, in milder climes he usually
went barefoot.  Most seamen wore red woolen stocking caps of the
type made in Toledo.  Columbus gave several of these caps as
gifts to the natives he encountered in the New World.
     The Spanish seaman's foul-weather garment has been described
as a brown cloth robe or overcoat called papahigo or "storm sail"
in sailors' slang, that resembled the habit of the Franciscan
friars.  this, the sea gown worn by mariners all over western
Europe, was the distinctive garment that identified them as
seafarers.  Chaucer's shipman of the Canterbury Tales, for
example, wore a "a gown of falding (a coarse cloth) to the knee."
This, plus the pilgrim's habit of wearing his sailors' knife hung
from a thong slung over his shoulder, marked him as a seaman in
the eyes of his fellow travelers.
     The sailor tightened his sea gown at the waist with a belt
or perhaps a bit of ships' hempen line; when working on deck he
often knotted the front or tucked it through his waist belt to
keep it out of the way.
     Ships' officers wore cloaks, jackets, or doublets of cloth
or dressed leather that laced down the front; hose and a variety
of styles of hats or caps, all in brighter colors than the rough
simple clothing of the sailors.  At his belt, the ship's officer
wore a dagger rather than a sailor's sheath knife.  At sea the
officers sometimes reverted, in part at least, to more common
sailors' garb.  Columbus is reported habitually to have worn a
brown sea gown, which was mistaken by some observers as being the
hooded brown habit of Franciscan monk.  It is interesting that a
man so vain of his rank and title would choose to wear a garment
so rough and uncouth in medieval eyes.
 
     Sleeping and sanitary accommodations aboard Columbus's hips
were primitive.  The captain and sailing master probably had
small cabins, each barely large enough to contain a narrow wooden
bunk.  Other officers slept on mattresses under the quarterdeck,
forward of the helmsman.  When not in use, the mattresses were
rolled up in grass sacks and lashed along the bulwarks.
     The ordinary sailors generally had to sleep in the open on
the cambered deck, where hatch covers offered the only flat
surfaces and coils of line served as pillows - or if more
fortunate, to huddle under the shelter of the forecastle.  On
many vessels of that time the sailors were forbidden to sleep in
the protection of the ship's hold, even during stormy weather, as
it would take too long to roust them out in an emergency.  In the
Santa Maria, with her large crew, this rule may not have been
enforced.
     To relieve a call of nature the sailor had to swing up over
the bulwarks and hang in the rigging over the ship's lee side,
"making reverence to the sun," as the saying was, and hope that
he would not be swept away by a visiting wave.  the lower rigging
had to be washed down each day as a consequence of this
necessity.
     When the ship was becalmed, the men might bathe themselves
on deck, scooping up sea water in buckets; the more adventurous
might, in calm weather, even go over the side if there were no
sharks about.  Most sailors wore whiskers or a  full beard,
because the average man of that day shaved only once a week if he
shaved at all.
 
     The staples of the Spanish sailor's diet were hard biscuit;
bacon; salt meat and fish; chick peas and beans; garlic and olive
oil; rice and raisins.  No cook was carried to prepare the
sailors' meals; this duty probably fell to one of the ships'
boys.  the officers ate aft, their food prepared by the captain's
servant.
     Hot meals, when they were available, always were soups or
stews prepared with salt meat or fish, broken ship's biscuit,
rice, and whatever spices were available, with rare additions of
onions or potatoes.  One such stew, called lobscouse, was eaten
by seafaring men until the end of the age of sail.  On Fridays,
if the weather held, the sailors' hot meal was bean soup seasoned
with garlic and peppers.
     Columbus described his idea of the stores to be carried on a
voyage of discovery thus: good biscuit seasoned and not old,
flour salted at the time of milling, wine, salt meat, oil,
vinegar, cheese, chick peas, lentils, beans, salt fish, honey,
rice, almonds, and raisins.  The salted flour could be mixed with
water or wine, made into cakes of unleavened bread, and baked in
the ashes at the bottom of the open iron firebox in which the hot
meals were prepared.  This primitive stove, called a fogon, was
brought up from below in fair weather and set on deck near the
lee rail.  The fire was kindled upon a bed of earth or sand that
covered the bottom of the firebox.  Supplies of firewood were
stowed in every available corner of the ship.
     When conditions permitted, a hot meal was prepared before
noon so that the watch below could eat before turning to and the
watch on deck could dine after being relieved.  Gathering around
the smoking firebox, the hungry sailors extended their bowls for
stew or soup and then found a place on the crowded, cluttered
deck or on the hatch.  Sprawling or kneeling or sitting as
conditions allowed, and with a knife their only utensil, they ate
"from their lap" in the fashion of the poor folk in the Middle
Ages.  As one observer noted, they "pull out their knives of
different shapes made to kill hogs or skin lambs or for cutting
bags, and then grab in their hands the poor bones and peel them
clean of their sinews and meat as if all their lives they had
practiced anatomy in Guadelupe or Valencia.  In a prayer, they
leave them clean as ivory.
     It did not take many days at sea for the food supplies to
become wormy and rancid in the damp shipboard environment.  And
the casks of fresh water soon became foul and stinking-though
when laced with wine the brackish liquid became at least barely
palatable.  Sometimes sailors carried their ration below decks to
eat in the dark-to avoid seeing the maggots that infested it.
     To supplement their diets, the sailors caught fish as often
as possible.  On Columbus's outward voyage, when supplies were
still relatively plentiful and fresh, such catches were a luxury.
During the return, however, they became a dire necessity.  The
admiral recorded in his Diario on January 25 - more than three
weeks before reaching the Azores - that the crew of the Nina had
"killed a porpoise and a tremendous shark...[they]had quite some
need of it because they were carrying nothing to eat except bread
and wine and yams from the Indies."
 
     Mariners marked the passage of time at sea with the turning
of a sandglass, which was done by an apprentice seaman.  As the
sand ran out at the end of each half-hour, the helmsman rang a
bell to remind the apprentice to turn the glass.  This was the
origin of the ship's-bell time used to this day.
     With each turning of the glass during the night watch, the
grumete called out to the lookout in the masthead "Ah!  de proa!
Alerta, buena guardia!" to which the lookout called back "Buena
guardia!" to prove he was awake - a procedure still followed
aboard some merchant ships in recent times.
 
     Ceremony and formality accompanied the passage of each watch
at sea.  Just before sundown and before the first night watch,
the crew was called to evening prayers.  An apprentice carried
the binnacle lamp aft along the deck, singing "Amen and God give
us a good night and a good sailing.  May the ship make a good
passage, captain and master and good company."  Then the
apprentices led the sailors in prayer, chanting the Pater Noster,
the Ave Maria, and the Credo, after which all hands sang the
Salve Regina.  For the sailors these chanted rituals of the
church were comforting and expected, their only link to their
distant homeland.
     The night watches also had their moments of formal spoken
reverence, as described by Felix Fabri, a traveler of 1480: "When
the wind is quite fair and not too strong all is still save only
he who watches the compass and he who holds the handle on the
tiller, for these, by way of returning thanks for a voyage and
good luck, continually greet the breeze, praise God, the Blessed
Virgin and the Saints, on answering the other, and they are never
silent so long as the wind is fair.  Anyone on board who hears
this chant of theirs would fall asleep."
          At daybreak the youngest boy of the watch sang or chanted a
prayer that invoked a blessing of the True Cross, the Holy
Trinity, and the true God, keeper of the immortal soul,
concluding:
     Blessed be the light of day
     And he who sends the night away.
Then the boy recited the Pater Noster and the Ave maria and added
a plea to God for a good voyage and the hope that he would grant
good days to the officers of the after guard and to the sailors
forward.
 
     The sailors and apprentices were divided into two watches,
each group alternating at watch-standing duties of four hours
each.  If he was not already on watch, the sailor's day began at
seven in the morning when the deck boy sang out "Al quarto!" (on
deck) and the men of the morning watch crawled out from whatever
sheltering spot they had found to sleep away their few hours of
rest.  No one needed time to dress, for all hands slept in their
clothes.  One sailor went aft to relieve the helmsman, who
steered from his position under the quarterdeck in an enclosed,
gloomy little space cut off from the rest of the ship.  He
handled the heavy tiller below decks, without any view of the sea
or the sails; his orders were shouted down to him through a small
hatch by the mate standing on the quarterdeck above.  Before him,
secured to the mizzenmast, was the binnacle, a box containing the
compass and its lantern.
     In maintaining his assigned compass course the helmsman was
aided by the feel of the ship under his feet and the orders of
the mat from above.  Steering was a rough job.  When a heavy sea
slammed against the rudder, the swinging tiller might knock the
helmsman off his feet.  To minimize this, a relieving tackle,
which could be adjusted to allow for the set of the sea, was
rigged to the tiller.  Not every sailor was a skilled helmsman.
Columbus noted in his journal that his sailors sometimes steered
badly, carelessly allowing the Santa Maria to run as much as
several points off the ordered course.
     The first duty of the men of the morning watch was to man
the wooden pumps that stood just forward of midships on the main
deck, to remove the water that had accumulated in the bilges
during the night.  The bilge water came up "foaming like hell and
stinking like the devil."  Seamen believed, however, that if the
bilges stank they would enjoy a lucky voyage; the stale water
sloshing about in the bottom of the hold ensured that the beams
and planks would remain swollen tight and that the crew would not
be laboring forever at the pumps.
     The men then scrubbed the deck with buckets of sea water and
stiff-bristled brooms.  In hot, dry climates this scrubbing and
sloshing of water over the decks was repeated several times a day
to keep the planking from drying out and shrinking in the hot
sun.  With their buckets, the men then washed down the lower
rigging, deadeyes, and main shrouds where they had been soiled by
men relieving themselves over the side during the night.
     Those on the morning watch were responsible for taking up
the slack in the running gear so that all the lines were taut.
The sailors also regularly tarred all of the standing rigging,
stays, and shrouds.  The deck boys were put to making up spun
yard and chafing gear out of old lines and making oakum from old
rope yarns for the caulker's use.
     When sail was to be taken in, the main yard was quickly
lowered to the deck and the sailors gathered the canvas and
secured it to the yard with lashings, after which all hands
manned the topping lifts and hauled the yard and its furled sail
back up to the masthead.  In good weather there was no need to
raise and lower the heavy yard because sailors could climb the
rigging and straddle the yard while gathering up the sail.
     When rain was expected and the wind permitted, the sailors
manned the mainsail clew lines and raised a corner of the sail to
form a belly in the canvas with which to catch some of the
precious rainwater, which then would be drained into buckets and
casks.
 
     During a storm at sea, life was a nightmarish struggle, with
the sailors fighting to take in sails and all hands laboring
constantly at the crude hand pumps or (when as often happened,
the pumps broke down) forming bucket brigades to bail the ship
out by hand.  Steering with the heavy wooden tiller in bad
weather was a brutal wrestling match that left the helmsman
exhausted and covered with bumps and bruises.
     In storm and howling winds many among the crew were both
sick and terrified, and the sailors were not reluctant to pray to
God and call upon the saints for mercy.  During Columbus's
homeward voyage, when the Nina fought to survive a February storm
off the Azores, the admiral himself "ordered that lots should be
drawn for a pilgrimage to Santa Maria de Guadalupe and to take a
five-pound wax candle [and] for another pilgrim to go to spend a
night at vigil in Santa Clara de Moguer and to have a Mass
said...After this the admiral and all the men made a vow that, as
soon as they reached the first land, all would go in their
shirtsleeves in procession to pray in a church dedicated to Our
Lady."
     During such miserable times there were no hot meals and
little sleep.  At the end of his watch the sailor, soaked to the
skin, rolled himself in his rough gown and napped, perhaps curled
up in a sodden coil of mooring line among the rats and roaches
under the forecastle, until the boatswain's whistle rousted him
out for another emergency.  After the storm passed, the mariners
often discovered to their further dismay that the sea stores had
suffered storm damage or that wine or water casks had been stove
in, requiring that both food and drink thereafter be severely
rationed.
 
     During most of his time at sea, the sailor had precious
little leisure time that was not spent in trying to sleep or
tending to necessary personal chores.  When in port or at anchor,
however, or in gentler hemispheres where emergencies were
infrequent, the seamen found time for entertainment.
Storytelling was a universal pastime among mariners and included
tall tales of adventures past and hardships endured, of feats of
gluttony and drinking bouts ashore, and of romances in different
ports.  The board game of checkers (damas in Spanish) was widely
played, and men off watch squandered many a hard-earned coin
gambling with dice under the forecastle head.
     Singing was another popular recreation for sailors far from
home.  We are told that after sighting the islands of the New
World, the crew of the Pinta sang and danced around the mainmast
to the accompaniment of pipes and a tambourine.  Shipmates also
passed their free hours at sea fishing with hand line and
harpoon; gathering flying fish that landed on deck; and spotting
and identifying types of birds that approached the ships.
     Yet another leisure-hour activity was described by a
seafaring pilgrim in 1401: "Among all the occupations of
seafarers there is one which, though loathsome, is yet very
common, daily and necessary.  I mean the hunting and catching of
lice and vermin.  Unless a man spends several hours in this work
when he is on pilgrimage, he will have but unquiet slumbers."
 
     Although there always have been men who loved the sea in
spite of all of its hardships and dangers, there was one feature
of the fifteenth-century sailor's calling that probably attracted
him more than anything else - the lure of money.  The peasant
farmer seldom saw hard cash in his life.  What his family could
not grow, weave, or craft itself must be obtained through barter.
To a youth growing up in such a world the idea of regular wages
was most attractive.  The sailor was paid in cash for his time
and labor.
     A sailor's monthly wage of eight hundred maravedis - enough
to buy two fat pigs - was about the same as that earned by the
manservant to a nobleman.  A ship's master earned more than
double that amount - the price of a cow.  For those who sailed
with Columbus, the enterprise held both the distant promise of a
fortune to be discovered in the Indies and also a stipulated
monthly salary to be earned in hard money from  Royal treasury.
     Despite all they had experienced and endured, the crews of
the Nina and Pinta who returned to Palos in March 1493 were in
remarkably good shape.  None had been lost due to disease or
accidents at sea.*  Before setting out in August 1492 they had
received four months' pay in advance.  Now, as they prepared to
drop anchor, the seamen could look forward to collecting the
balance owed them and to telling all who would listen of the
strange sights they had seen.  Although history would focus its
gaze on the man who commanded the expedition, the seamen whose
labors brought the two surviving ships back to their home port
could bask, at least for a time, in his reflected glory.
 
*Sadly, more than a third of Columbus's sailors did not survive
to enjoy their hard-won rewards.  When the Santa Maria ran
aground and was wrecked off Hispanola, the admiral, having
insufficient room aboard the remaining ships for all of his
crewmen, built a fort--named La Villa de Navidad in honor of the
Christmas feast day--and left thirty-nine men behind.  When his
second expedition returned to Villa de Navidad in November 1493,
Columbus found the fort in ashes and the men dead at the hands of
local Taino tribesmen--the Navidad garrison having allowed greed
and lust to destroy the good relations that Columbus had
established with the natives.