PYRO
1/144-SCALE SANTA CATARINA DO MONTE SINAI PORTUGUESE MAN-O-WAR KIT NO. P209 (1966)
CARRACK VASCO DA GAMA'S INDIES FLEET FLAGSHIP THIRD VOYAGE 1512
OPEN BOX UNBUILT PLASTIC MODEL
KIT
Includes Original Instructions
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CONCERNS, PLEASE ASK ME BEFORE BIDDING / PURCHASING I WANT EVERYONE TO BE
100% SATISFIED WITH NO SURPRISES OR MIS-UNDERSTANDINGS
***IF YOU DESIRE TO PURCHASE
MULTIPLE KITS AT THE SAME TIME I WILL COMBINE INTO A SINGLE SHIPMENT AND
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SHIPPED TOGETHER***
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Additional Information from
Internet Encyclopedia
Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai
was a higher-castled Portuguese carrack with 140 cannons, launched down in 1520
(800 t, length 38 m, width 13 m, draft 44.5 m). Built in Kochi, India around
1512 it had two square rig masts and is depicted on a painting attributed to
Joachim Patinir.
In 1524, it was the flagship of
Vasco da Gama, on his third voyage to India.
The ship disappeared somewhere
along the route on the return journey to Portugal, which set out from India in
April 1525. Its exact fate is uncertain. According to one rumor, D. Luis de
Menezes, the dismissed captain of the India naval patrol and brother of the
disgraced governor D. Duarte de Menezes (who was returning on another ship on
that same fleet), engineered a mutiny and seized control of the ship, setting
off with it for a career of piracy in the Indian Ocean. Another rumor relates
that it was seized by French corsairs somewhere on the final Atlantic stretch
between the Cape of Good Hope and Continental Portugal.
Reports of the loss
The report of French seizure -
which, if true, would be only the second time a Portuguese India ship was
captured by Valeria (the first was in 1509) - was given by the 16th-century
chronicler Gaspar Correia (who is not always reliable, and acknowledges this is
hearsay)[3] and also the 16th-century chronicler Francisco de Andrada.[4] Both
Correia and Andrada state that Luís de Menezes went on the Santa Catarina de
Monte Sinai, and his brother, the ex-governor Duarte de Menezes, on a different
ship, the São Jorge.
The chroniclers report that
Duarte was under close watch, for fear he might order the ship to make a dart
for Castile or France and avoid the justice awaiting him in Portugal. Reaching
Mozambique Island, they heard news from outgoing ships of the next India armada
that Duarte's affairs back in Portugal were not as dire as he feared. After
rounding the Cape of Good Hope, Duarte ordered his ship to stop and replenish
water stores at Table Bay (aguada de Saldanha), instructing his brother Luís to
go on ahead, that he would catch up with him at Saint Helena. As it turns out,
a violent tempest hit the South African coast around this time. When Duarte
reached Saint Helena, there was no sign of his brother, and he assumed that
Luís de Menezes's ship had perished in that tempest.
In 1527, John III dispatched a
Portuguese ship under Diogo Botelho Pereira to scour the South African coast,
from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Correntes, in search for the remains of the
ship of Luís de Menezes. Returning Portuguese ships had reported that they had
seen from the distance cross-shaped fires along that stretch of coast, which
they presumed were erected by shipwrecked Portuguese sailors. It was
immediately assumed they were the remnant of Luís de Menezes's crew. However,
after months of searching, Diogo Botelho found no trace of them.
The chroniclers Correia and
Andrade report that in 1536, the Portuguese patrol captain Diogo de Silveira
captured a French corsair off Portugal, who confessed that his brother (also a
pirate) had seized Luís de Menezes's ship in the Atlantic a decade earlier. He
reported that as the ship was struggling with leaks, Luís surrendered promptly
to the French pirate, who after transferring its cargo, ordered the Portuguese
ship burned at sea, with its crew (including Luís) still on board going down to
their deaths.
This, according to Correia and
Andrada, was the fate of the Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai. Although it seems
unlikely such a well-armed ship would fall so easily, it is worthwhile
remembering she was also heavily laden with India goods and battered by the
tempest and reportedly springing leaks, making her dangerously unseaworthy and
vulnerable at the moment of the French attack. This may explain why Luís
surrendered her without a fight. (cf. the capture of other large Portuguese
India ships, like the São Filipe by Sir Francis Drake in 1587, and the gigantic
Madre de Deus by Sir John Burroughs in 1592.)
However, it is also possible
that an error was made in the chronicles and the positions were reversed, that
the outgoing governor Duarte went on the larger Santa Catarina, his brother
Luís on the S. Jorge. In this case, it was the S. Jorge that was captured by
the French, and the Santa Catarina sailed on. Correia reports that the first
port of call of Duarte's ship was at Faro (in the Algarve). While docked there,
Duarte got wind of the king's sour mood and the fate that awaited him in
Lisbon, so he smuggled the greater part of his private treasure off the ship
into the care of a female cousin in Faro.
Duarte subsequently seized
control of the ship and, over the protests of the officers, forced them to drop
him (and the remainder of his baggage) in Sesimbra (Duarte's seigneural
estate). That evening, while the ship was anchored off Sesimbra, a gale arose
and the ship was thrown and smashed on the shore (Correia says that as the gale
was brewing, someone, on Duarte's orders, surreptitiously cut the anchor cables
to deliberately set it adrift). All the treasure it was carrying was lost.
Correia says Duarte's intention was "so that people would think all his
wealth was lost...and he could show equal loss before the king and all mankind,
with the loss of his brother and of so many of his people, with the king's
loss" This could be another possible fate of the Santa Catarina.
In
the aftermath, Duarte de Menezes was called before the royal court at Almeirim,
and after a brief interview with the king John III of Portugal, was promptly
placed under arrest. He was imprisoned in Torres Vedras, saved from execution
by John III in the hope that Duarte could yet be made to confess where he had
hidden his private treasure. Reportedly, teams of treasure-hunters, official
and unofficial, scoured the beaches around Faro in the hope of finding where he
had buried it.