Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria rise again — in a tank

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 15

Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria rise again — in a tank

It took 86 people, nine weeks and 4237 cubic feet of wood, but the results were staggering: three hand crafted caravels, ranging in length from 59 to 75 feet, each with tall masts, full sails, two or three levels and a capacity to carry at least 25 men. Meticulously designed from old drawings, documents and paintings, they are replicas of the three most famous ships ever to sail the Atlantic. They are the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, the ships that reached land in the Western hemisphere on October 12, 1492. Their voyages and the trials of the sailors who risked their lives to crew them, will be dramatised in “Christopher Columbus,” an epic six-hour mini-series starring Gabriel Byrne. The ships' were constructed in Malta and lowered by cranes into a

“surface tank,” a 459 by 300 feet pond situated near the open sea at the Mediterranean Film Studios. The tank, which holds 2|4 million gallons of water, was the brainchild of an Englishman, Jim Hole, who built it in 1967 for special effects. Filmgoers have seen it in the octopus fight in “Popeye” and sequences in “Orca,” “Shout at the Devil,” “Zeppelin,” “The Bedford Incident” and “Force Ten From Navarone.” Its sister deepwater tank was used for “Raise the Titanic.” Filming in a tank, however, does not guarantee calm seas and moonlit skies. Three days before filming began, while the cast and crew were at dinner, a tornado struck the Santa Maria’s main mast, knocking it over, but mercifully sparing the ship of further damage.