Treasure Hunters Find Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria Shipwreck

It’s been lost to history for over 500 years, but now a team of archaeologists may have found Christopher Columbus’ famed Santa Maria, the largest of his fleet, which set sail for the Americas in 1492.

The Santa María had a single deck and three masts. She was the slowest of Columbus’s vessels but performed well in the Atlantic crossing. After engaging in festivities and drinking, Columbus ordered that the crew continue sailing to Cuba late into the night. One-by-one the crew kept falling asleep until only a cabin boy was steering the ship which caused the ship to run aground off the present-day site of Cap-Haïtien, Haiti on December 25, 1492, and was lost.

According to a new report, the mystery of the ship’s whereabouts has now been solved:

It’s likely to be one of the world’s most important underwater archaeological discoveries.

“All the geographical, underwater topography and archaeological evidence strongly suggests that this wreck is Columbus’ famous flagship, the Santa Maria,” said the leader of a recent reconnaissance expedition to the site, one of America’s top  underwater archaeological investigators, Barry Clifford.

“The Haitian government has been extremely helpful – and we now need to continue working  with them to carry out a detailed archaeological excavation of the wreck,” he said.

So far, Mr. Clifford’s team has carried out purely non-invasive survey work at the site – measuring and photographing it.

The following is a picture of the underwater remains of Columbus’ ship.

A replica of the Santa Maria was built in Columbus, Ohio and now resides at the Santa Maria museum.

This is what the ship may have looked like in it heyday:

The Columbus Foundation has built replicas of the other two ships which made the trip across the Atlantic in 1492, The Nina (picutred left) and Pinta: