Saludos Don Roberto,        I understand that the sailors had a bit of trouble rowing the Adelantado ashore at the recent Menéndez landing reenactment (Sept. 2002).  I must confess that we've had problems ourselves on the west coast of La Florida in a similar vain with our "sailors" man the oars like soldiers.  I hope this brief article for the HFM newsletter will be of some use to others to at least sounding like we know what we are doing. -Timothy Burke Calderon's Company

     Calderon's Company in addition to its units of infantry, cavalry, and artillery has recently acquired a ship's boat (the caraval replica is still some time in the future).  Bill Burger, Calderon's Company's resident archaeologist found her rotting is somebody's yard while doing some site surveys for FDOT in central Florida.  For only $100 her managed to acquire the wooden boat and trailer.  The transom (stern) was completely rotted out but the boat was otherwise intact.  Bill figured that at the very least it would be useful for amaking a fiberglass mold. A friend of Bill's who builds wooden boats offered us a great deal of technical assistance replacing the transom, calking and otherwise making her seaworthy.  According to the guy Bill bought the boat from it had leaked badly (as in a foot or two of water) the one time he had taken out on the river, they barely made it back to shore.  We had a little seepage on our test run, although that was to expected as the wood hasn't seen any water in years.  Of course we'll  always have helmets to bail with if need be.

      Conquistadors early on adopted an Aztec form of armor called in Natal "ichcahuipilli" or in Spanish the more pronouncable  "escaupil".  Made of quilted cotton or wool, "three or four fingers thick" it proved very effective  at stopping indian arrows.  We've covered some watersking vests to make Coast Guard approved PFD's for those of us wearing armor on our voyages.

     The boat is about  20' long and 8' wide and flat bottomed.  Not the most stable configuration for ocean going but perfect for the flat shallows found in this part of Florida. It will hold 6-8 people.  After christening  La Antonita and practicing rowing it around on a Sunday in March (2002), I realized that like many a 16th C. Spanish noblemen before me, who found himself a captain or even an admiral, the competence upon the land does not necessarily equate with it a sea.  So I went looking for some very basic commands in Spanish before our public premier at the Emmerson Point timeline; phrases like "stroke" & "ship oars."

My thanks to Hector Diaz of the Soldados e-mail list (  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Soldados ) for his help on the Spanish and of course Uncle Tio who actually rowed with us whilst giving us a pronounciation lesson.
 

Saludos from Maryland! I was reading you email and though that  maybe some useful commands or you will be the Spanish:

"Remos" is the Spanish word for "Ships oars".
"A los remos" which means "to the oars", and it is pronounced "Ah lohs rehmos!";
"Remen" (pronounced "Rehmen" not "Raemen") for "Row".
"Altos los remos" (Raise up oars)

 I think that there are a few others that could be useful too, such as:

"Bote al agua!" ("Boat to the water), pronounced "Bohteh al ahguah"
"Paren de remar!" ("Stop rowing!") pronounced "Pahren deh rehmar"

To change direction to the sides the commands would be
"A babor" (to the left side of the vessel) ("A-port the helm"),pronounced "Ah bahbor!";
"A estribor" (right side) ("To starboard"), pronounced "Ah ehstribohr".

One final note on the pronunciation, in this case, of the Spanish letter "R". In English it is pronounced more or less by rolling the tip of your tongue back against your palate. In Spanish, however, you; 1) stretch your tongue and place it against the fleshy part of your palate immediately behind your upper teeth, and; 2) let only the tip bend a little or pull it back as slightly  while you ponounce the "R". I realize this may be a a little too much for your impresion on the 30th, but hopefully, it will be of use further on!  I do not know if these were the actual commands the Spanish used. But, if they are not they ought to have been!    -Hector

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