Model of the galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y de las Ánimas (1687–1705), royal flagship of the Navy of the Ocean Sea

This model, built in 2000 by Jesús Mari Perona, depicts the galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y de las Ánimas.

This galleon is a direct descendant of the galleons built in Cantabria from 1583 onward. The ship was built at the Colindres shipyard in Santander and completed in Santoña between 1682 and 1690 by Antonio Amas and Ignacio Soroa, overseen by General Millán Ignacio de Iriarte y Gaztelu. The proportions and size of the ship correspond to those of a galleon intended to be the royal flagship of the Navy of the Ocean, as decreed by His Majesty the King. Antonio Gaztañeta’s written annotations and meticulous drawings, recorded while the ship was being built and published in the 1688 book, Arte de Fabricar Reales, provide us with a great deal of information on the ship’s design and its main dimensions. We know its dimensions, its capacity for 90 guns, and the fact that its layout was typical of Spanish ships built up to 1715, with the jack replaced by a jib-boom. Painted in a variety of bright colors, the model is built to a larger scale than is usual. The structural details and interior layout of a long ship with a steeply raked prow and a flat stern with a rudder, 3 decks, forecastle, quarter-deck, and poop deck.

Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y de las Ánimas became the royal flagship of the Navy of the Ocean, as well as the flagship of General Diego Fernández de Zaldívar, Count of Saucedilla (previously Admiral of the Fleet of New Spain), later going to the Antilles to assist the Armada de Barlovento (Windward Fleet). The galleon was one of the ships sent to expel the Scottish from Darien, setting sail from Cádiz in mid-July of 1700. Its condition was so badly deteriorated that in 1705 it was partially dismantled in Cádiz, and the timber from its freeboard used to repair the command ship. Its remains were later submerged at Puntales to close off an access channel inside the bay, so as to prevent new enemy attacks carried out in the name of Charles III of Austria, pretender to the Spanish throne.

The model was acquired by the Museum on November 15, 2001 as a gift to the State by Juan Claudio de Ramón, president of Sociedad Patriber S. A. and chair of the board of trustees of the Naval Museum.