Captain de la Cosa commanded the Santa Maria, Captain Martin Alonso Pinzon the Pinta and his brother, Captain Vincent Pinzon, the Nina.

The Santa Maria was the largest of the three vessels; it was therefore selected as the leader of the fleet--the flag-ship, as it is called--and upon it sailed the commander of the expedition, the Admiral Don Christopher Columbus.
When we think of a voyage across the Atlantic nowadays, we think of vessels as large as the big three-masted ships or the great ocean steamers--vessels over six hundred feet long and fifty feet wide.

But these "ships" of Columbus were not really ships.

They were hardly larger than the "fishing smacks" that sail up and down our coast to-day.

Some of them were not so large.