“Your Holy Majesties have graciously given your approval of my voyage across the western ocean in order that I may find a short route to the Indies. Yet I must beg your Majesties one more royal favor. I ask before I set sail that you shall appoint me admiral of all the ocean seas. This shall be the mark of your faith in me." So spoke in substance Admiral Christopher Columbus, to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain on the eve of his departure from Palos, August, 1492. In these words which actually amounted to a demand Columbus revealed that phase of his character of which he was most proud and which was the very foundation stone of his discoveries.
Columbus was a sea captain, unquestionably the greatest in the history of the sea. If he hadn't been, he could never have safely crossed the trackless Atlantic, or, granting him luck enough to take him to San Salvador, he could never have gotten home to tell the world about what he had done unless he was possessed of a seaman's instinct fortified by the iron will of the sea captain who fights the hungry Atlantic and balks her.
The great courage of the Admiral; his sublime faith in his ability to discover new lands across the seas; his consuming determination; of what avail are all these alone when the curling, snarling waves of a storm at sea lash about the low decks of his frail caravels. Then it is the sea captain who must conquer or sink to a grave in the depths of the sea.
Admiral Columbus bested the Atlantic not once but many times. Eight crossings he made, four westbound and four eastbound, totaling with his cruises among the islands of the West Indies and along the coasts of Central America more than 30,000 miles. All this he did without the loss of a ship or the loss of a man. These constitute his claims to fame as a seaman and a captain of a ship.
Go down to the beach at the seaport of Palos and watch the Admiral prepare his flagship, Santa Maria, for the great voyage. She is the poorest craft there and requires much work to make her at all seaworthy. More than this she is "a dull sailor, unfit for discovery" according to the Admiral's description of her entered in his log. You will notice with astonishment that she is decked over only in the bow and stern. The midship section is an open well. The Santa Maria is only ninety feet long. Into this vessel an ugly looking crew are piling sea stores for fifty-two men. Casks upon casks of Spanish wine, coarse sea biscuits, bales of dried fish and sun cured meats. The Admiral is watching this work carefully. It is the sea captain's job to guard against overloading, but he must see to it that enough food and wine go along to the end that no lack of these shall cause him to turn around in mid-Atlantic and head for home.
As evening falls the Admiral is seen testing his compass which he calls the "Needles." The test consists in seeing if the needles point to the North Star. He next examines his astrolabe. This crude instrument is designed to measure the altitude of the North Star but as the Admiral wouldn't know how to use the altitude of the North Star if he got it, he is of no mind to worry over the grave inaccuracies of his instrument. Don't expect the Admiral to compare his watches and clocks because he has none, nor will he adjust his patent log for reading the ship's speed for the same reason. The "Pointers" of the North Star rotating around the North Star are the only time keepers he knows about and for estimating his speed through the water he is accustomed to stand on the forecastle and toss a chip of wood into the sea and to pace this as it floats to the stern—a known distance at an estimated walking speed.
The sails of the Santa Maria were made of woven cotton, a tough, durable fabric we must assume, since the admiral makes no mention of its causing him any concern. The rigging was hemp. This material likewise was satisfactory.
The Santa Maria, from a seaman's viewpoint, was badly over-manned. Of the fifty-two men crowded into a craft ninety feet long and displacing only 100 tons, fully thirty-five were excess baggage, taking up space that ought to have been used for sea stores. This excess, too, made three daily inroads into the very heart of the expedition—sea stores. The Admiral's excuse for this must lie in the concession the seaman has to make to the needs of a military commander headed for a strange and hostile shore.
Columbus' seaman's ability to make his own repairs was tested by the rough sea kicked up by the strong southwest breeze that carried him to the Canaries. Before he reached these islands the steering gear of the Pinta gave way. This the Admiral remedied so thoroughly that no further trouble came from it during the entire voyage.
From the Canaries to the Indies the Admiral deemed his course to be westerly. This required winds from well abaft the beam as the craft did poorly in windward sailing. Here the seaman's instinct in Columbus guided him to the region of the favoring trades. This was not luck. It is to be noted that he kept clear of the impossible route to the west via the British Isles.
The log of the Santa Maria, written up each day by the Admiral, reveals the seaman's watchful scrutiny of wind, course, distance, and state of the sea and weather. For example he wrote on September 13: "That day and night steering their course which was west, they made thirty-three leagues (ninety-nine miles). The currents were against them. On this day at the commencement of the night the needles turned one half point more northwest."
From this observation the Admiral is credited with the discovery of the variation of the compass. This change escaped the notice of the other captains in the fleet until it was called to their attention four days later.
On September 14 the Admiral wrote: "That day they navigated on their west course day and night twenty leagues. A tern and a boatswain bird were seen."
On September 25: "The Admiral ordered the course changed from west to southwest. That day they made four leagues on a west course and seventeen on southwest during the night. The sea was smooth and the sailors bathed alongside."
On September 30: "The western course was steered and during the day and night only fourteen leagues were made. The stars which are called the guards, when night comes on are near the northeast point so that during the night they move only three lines which are nine hours."
Ever watchful of the sea and atmosphere and ready to profit by what he saw and learned Columbus was the first to recognize the hours of greatest visibility at sea and to take advantage of fleet assembly at dawn and sunset. This is shown by his log written on October 17: "The west course was continued. They made good twenty-three leagues. The Admiral had ordered that at sunrise and sunset all ships should join him because those two times are most proper for seeing the greatest distance, the haze clearing away."
The westerly courses and the distance sailed; these are the daily entries in the Admiral's log that came first in his attention. They express the very essence of a sea captain; they thrust all other matters into the background. Concentrated on the direction the ship was steering and the miles made good he had no mental wanderings into the speculations of discovery. His mission was to get his ship safely and quickly over the ocean and into port.
After the landing at San Salvador the fleet, led by the Santa Maria, traversed the Crooked Island Passage. Observe, from the following abstract from the log, the Admiral's seamanship in sailing through this pass.
I had laid by during the night with the fear of reaching land to anchor before daylight not knowing whether the coast was clear of rocks, and at dawn I made sail. As the island was not more than five leagues distant and nearer, and the tide checked my way, it was noon when we arrived at said island. As from this island I saw another larger one to the west, I clewed up the sails after having run all that day until night; otherwise I could not have reached the western cape. I gave the name Santa Maria de la Conception (the Rum Cay of today) to this island and almost as the sun set I anchored near the said cape to ascertain if it contained gold.
October 19: I weighed the anchors at daylight sending the caravel Pinta on an east southeast course, the caravel Nina south southeast while I shaped a southeast course giving orders that these courses were to be steered until noon and that the two caravels should alter course to join company with me. Before we had sailed three hours we saw an island to east for which we steered and all three vessels arrived at the north point before noon. Here there is an islet (Bird Rock), and a reef of rocks to seaward of it besides one between the islet and the large island. The men of San Salvador whom I had with me call it Saomette and I gave it the name of Isabella (Crooked Island).
Having safely led his fleet through this rock strewn region the Admiral sailed along the northeast coast of Cuba for about 200 miles examining bays, harbors and the mouths of rivers all without a mishap.
Homeward bound from Haiti in midwinter, 1493. Columbus was face to face with head winds, the easterly trades that had borne him to San Salvador. It was at this point that the Admiral's fine seaman's instinct led him directly to the solution of his difficulties. Wasting no time in hoping for a change of direction in the easterly trades or strength in attempting to buck head winds, he headed north. His seaman's sense told him that not far away from the sea region of steady east winds there must be a region of winds nearly opposite in direction. Not many days later the fleet was steering due east on the lift of a quartering breeze.
The Admiral's greatest test as a sea captain was to come before his fleet was to sight the welcome shores of Portugal. Midwinter storms of the Atlantic began pounding his vessels. The climax came in a lashing gale that only the supreme seamanship of Columbus could have enabled him to live through. Six days and six nights the storm raged against the Admiral's frail craft. With a seaman's prevision of the gale he had snugged everything down. Under bare poles topped by a lighted lantern at night, the fleet was driven on to an anchorage in the Azores. The seamanship that had guided his ships to San Salvador brought them home to tell of it.
In the three voyages to the West Indies and return following the discovery of America, the Admiral, steering a different route each time, always fetched up in the harbor at San Domingo. This resulted not from navigation, for he knew none, but from seamanship. On his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus sailed through the dangerous currents of the "Serpent Mouth" and the equally dangerous "Dragon's Mouth" separating Trinidad from the islands of the promontory of Paria.
Admiral Columbus had the seaman's eye and the seaman's sense. These he had built up from years on the sea and sharpened to a degree never equalled before or since. We can picture him gazing on sky and sea and wind, reading the coming weather with invariable exactness and backing up his judgment with action suited to the needs of his ship. No barometer nor ocean wind charts, nor knowledge of the region of trade winds or sources of gales helped Columbus. The seaman in him enabled him to divine the face of the sea as no man before him had ever done.
Historians tell us that the discovery of America was born out of the faith of Columbus in his vision of lands in the west, his courage to cross an ocean (to his mind of fathomless depth) and his courage to go on in the face of all difficulties. Those to whom the Admiral's supreme mastery of the seaman's art makes its appeal like to believe that it was not Columbus, the discoverer, who found America but Admiral Columbus, seaman and sea captain.