Columbus departing on a voyage to the new world
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Historical Art Collection (HAC) / Alamy Stock PhotoImage ID:
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Columbus's three ships (Niña, Pinta and Santa María) left the port of Palos de la Frontera on August 3, 1492. Three days into the journey, on August 6, 1492, the rudder of the Pinta became broken and unhung, rendering the ship disabled. The owners of the ship, Gomez Rascon and Christoval Quintero, were suspected of sabotage, as they and their ship had been pressed into service against their will. The captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, was able to secure the rudder temporarily with cords until the Canary Islands could be reached on August 9, 1492. Here the fleet repaired the Pinta and re-rigged the Niña's lateen sails to standard square sails. While securing provisions from the island of La Gomera, Columbus received word that three Portuguese caravels had been seen hovering near El Hierro with the supposed intention of capturing him. However, on September 6, 1492 the westward voyage began without incident. The conventional story about his first expedition as described in the abstract of his log made by Bartolome de Las Casas is that on the outward bound voyage Columbus recorded 2 sets of distance figures. He reported the shorter distances to his crew so that they would not worry about sailing too far from Spain. However, according Oliver Dunn and James Kelley, this was a misunderstanding by Las Casas. Columbus did report two distances each day but one was in measurements he normally used, the other in the Portuguese maritme leagues used by his crew.' On September 8, 1492, Columbus observed that the needle of his compass no longer pointed to the North star, a phenomenon which had never before been recorded in Europe. The needle instead had varied a half point to the Northwest, and continued to vary further as the journey progressed. He at first made no mention of this, knowing his crew to be prone to panic with their destination unknown, but after several days his pilots took notice with much anxiety.