La Niña was much smaller, not more than 50 tons. Of these the first two were about 130 tons. As it sailed, the fleet of Columbus consisted of Gallega (the Galician), which he changed to Santa María, La Pinta and La Niña. Most of the commerce of the time was the coastal commerce of the Mediterranean, so it was better if ships did not draw much water. This made it difficult to recruit crew members, and a small number were jailed prisoners given a light sentence if they would sail with Columbus. Columbus' smaller-sized ships were considered riskier on the open ocean than larger ships.

Ships built in Europe in the 15th century were designed to sail the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean coastlines. Another large ship, the English carrack Grace Dieu, was built during the period 1420–1439, was 66.4 m (218 ft) long, and displaced between 1,400 tons and 2,750 tons. Peter von Danzig of the Hanseatic League was built in 1462 and was 51 m (167 ft) long. They were small trade ships surpassed in size by ships like Great Michael, built in Scotland in 1511 with a length of 73.2 m (240 ft), and a crew of 300 sailors, 120 gunners, and up to 1,000 soldiers. La Niña, La Pinta, and Santa María were not the largest ships in Europe at the time. La Niña and La Pinta replicas at the 1893 Columbian Exposition This word represents a capacity about one-tenth larger than that expressed by the modern English 'ton'. Columbus once used the word for a vessel of forty tons, but it generally applied in Portuguese or Spanish use to a vessel ranging from 120 to 140 Spanish 'toneles'. They were called caravels, a name then given to the smallest three-masted vessels. Santa María (also known as the Gallega) was the largest, of a type known as a carrack ( carraca in Spanish), or by the Portuguese term nau. There are no known contemporary likenesses of Columbus's ships. The other ships of the Columbus expedition were La Niña (real name Santa Clara) and Santa María. The crew size was 26 men under Captain Martín Alonso Pinzón. The ship displaced approximately 60 tons, with an estimated deck length of 17 meters (56 ft) and a width of 5.36 meters (17.6 ft). La Pinta was square rigged and smaller than Santa María. She was later rebuilt for use by Christopher Columbus. The origin of the ship is disputed but is believed to have been built in Spain in the year 1441. The actual original name of La Pinta is unknown. The Santa María's original nickname was La Gallega.

Thus, La Pinta, like La Niña, was not the ship's actual name La Niña's actual name was the Santa Clara. By tradition Spanish ships were named after saints and usually given nicknames. The owner of the ship allowed Martín Alonso Pinzón to take over the ship so he could keep an eye on the ship. The Quintero brothers were ship owners from Palos.

The owner of La Pinta was Cristóbal Quintero. The New World was first sighted by Rodrigo de Triana aboard La Pinta on 12 October 1492. La Pinta ( Spanish for The Painted One, The Look, or The Spotted One) was the fastest of the three Spanish ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first transatlantic voyage in 1492. Replica of La Pinta, in Palos de la Frontera

Nina pinta replicas