Back in early 2011, the Maritime Museum of San Diego announced plans to build a full-size replica of the San Salvador galleon. I didn’t find out where they were going to build such a ship until July 2011, at which point I visited the site and got a few pictures:

The San Salvador was the flagship of an expedition under the command of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. It was a 200-ton galleon built on the Pacific coast of Guatemala in the late 1530s.

Cabrillo and over 170 Spaniards, Portuguese, and other Europeans, together with indigenous workers from New Spain, Central America, and West Africa sailed in June 1542 to explore the northern Pacific and eventually reach Asia.

Cabrillo’s voyage on the San Salvador resulted in the first visit to San Diego bay by a European-organized expedition, as well as the first encounter with native peoples of the region.

Originally, it was only supposed to take fourteen months to build the ship, but all sorts of problems occurred, first and foremost of which was that the European company that was supposed to furnish the wood for the ship went out of business. I think it took several months to find another supplier. It’s not every day that one goes looking for the same type of wood that ships were built with in the 1530s!

A recent email from the Maritime Museum indicated that the San Salvador is almost ready to launch, so I went to get pictures of it still in dry dock:

Isn’t she purty?

Eventually I’ll have much more about the San Salvador, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Cabrillo National Monument, and Spanish Landing, the place where the Spanish landed on September 28, 1542. I also am planning on making it to the launch to get video, which should prove fascinating to a history buff like me.

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