Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai

Type

Carrack

Period

16th Century

Nation

Portugal

Overview: Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai was a large Portuguese carrack (nau) of the Carreira da India, unusual for having been built in Portuguese India rather than Europe, and is best known as the last flagship of Vasco da Gama on his third and final voyage in 1524. Specifications: A higher-castled carrack of roughly 800 tons burden, about 38 m long with a 13 m beam and 4-4.5 m draught, she carried an unusually heavy battery reported as up to 140 guns, mostly light swivel pieces mounted along the railings and castles rather than a conventional broadside battery. She was built of teak at Cochin, India, in 1510, to serve as one of the large armed merchant ships of the Portuguese East Indies trade. Service History: With a few exceptions, such as the Flor de la Mar and Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai, Portuguese India naus were not typically built to last longer than four or five years of useful service, yet this ship served repeatedly in the Carreira da India from around 1517. In 1520-21 she carried the Infanta Dona Beatriz to Italy for her marriage to Charles III of Savoy, and in 1524 Vasco da Gama took her as his flagship on his third voyage to India, along with two of his sons, Estevao and Paulo. On the return voyage she vanished; one account holds that Luis de Menezes engineered a mutiny and seized control of the Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai, and proceeded to turn to a piratical career, while another record states the great carrack built in Goa in 1512 had been used to carry Vasco da Gama in 1523 to serve as the new viceroy of India, and was on its way back to Portugal in 1525, with the former governor D. Duarte de Menezes, when it was taken by French corsairs. Notable Facts: The ship is widely identified as the vessel depicted in "Portuguese Carracks off a Rocky Coast," a panel painting from the circle of Joachim Patinir now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; this large, detailed panel is the oldest painting of the sea by a Flemish or Flemish-trained artist in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, and one of the few contemporary paintings of ships of the first half of the sixteenth century. The subject is generally thought to be the carrack Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai bringing the Infanta Beatriz, second daughter of King Manuel of Portugal, to Villefranche for her marriage to Charles III, Duke of Savoy, in 1521, though the Flemish style of the work keeps the identification debated among scholars. Her unusual construction abroad and association with Vasco da Gama's final voyage have made her a popular modeling subject, including a 1960s-era Pyro/Lindberg 1:144 injection-molded plastic kit still built by hobbyists today.