The Life of a Boat That Travelled Round The World

My Beginnings (1492–1510)

My story begins in the forests of the north, where my body grew strong and proud over the years as an oak tethered to the earth.

For me, the sea was a distant sound, and the winds were still without names.

I was a tree at the time the people of my country set off across the ocean to change the world.

As my wood matured, the Age of Discovery was beginning at the end of the 14th century.

The world was a planet with still unknown oceans and where the Portuguese and Spanish were exploring new sea routes to the Far East to gain access to the origins of valuable spices.

Five boats were brought together in Seville to quickly become my fleet. There, we were repaired and men came aboard. We were called the Armada del Maluco—the armada of the impossible journey—the one that wanted to reach the East from the West.

We were the vanguard. Revolutionary ships filled with the knowledge and technology of a whole era.

Ships were bought and repaired for 16 months, and I was one of them. Enough provisions were stored for two years, and a crew of 245 men was recruited, with different trades and 10 different nationalities.

In the Atlantic, we were trapped by calm waters and endured storms and headwinds that put our timbers and rigging to the test. The first part of the voyage was so bad that the Nao San Antonio deserted the fleet. On their return to Seville, the crew were tried for treason.

We were a fleet of five boats, and together we voyaged further south than had ever been explored before. We discovered and named The Magellan Strait.

We sailed to the west, turning that unsailed sea, into the greatest ocean on Earth. We called it the Pacific. We were the first: Trinidad, Concepción, and Victoria, etc. The ocean was filled with a thousand islands, a thousand worlds, a thousand wars and times of peace.

Captain Magellan died in the Philippines, and Juan Sebastián Elcano replaced him, taking us on to the Moluccas Islands. There, we loaded up with spices.

I entered the Indian Ocean alone, and, fleeing people and war, I sailed nonstop across the unexplored great south, opening up new routes. I fought the Roaring Forties (gale-force, west-to-east currents) and found only ocean. West, west west, to the end of the world!

At the Cape of Storms or Good Hope, I was broken by storms, my sails blown out, and death came to my deck. Inexplicable human resilience kept me afloat. I returned to the Atlantic but found no solace there either.