San Salvador Construction

Looking over the fence at the work

Last week while in San Diego, I stopped by the build site of the San Salvador. This is a recreation of the Spanish ship that Cabrillo used as his flag ship while sailing the Pacific Coast in the 1500’s. These ships, in this case a Galleon, were built in the ‘new world’ instead of sailed from Spain. The basic hull had either a Galleon rig or a Caravel rig. The Galleon rig is more of the ‘square’ rig, while the Caravel had large triangular sails.

Looking down the side

This new ship is being built without plans, or I should say without original plans. No plans were available so historic descriptions and drawings were used to create a set of plans to build by. The ship is small, about 80 feet and high, think of a wine barrel with a sail. At this point, the frames are finished and the interior is being built out. There will be water tight compartments and the ship is divided by metal bulkheads, the rest is wood. The ship will have two engines as well so it can motor for better transit speeds.  



Shot of the bow section

 The build site is at Spanish Landing next to the San Diego Airport. You can pay to go in and see everything, I just looked over the fence. When finished the boat will be launched from this location by crane. It should be finished next year some time if all goes as planned.

The build site at Spanish Landing