Have occasionally toyed with the idea of writing something set in that time frame but I think unless you have actually been in one of those types of vessels you have trouble understanding the feel of them.
And that is the kind of thing that gets your book tossed across the room and scathing letters from readers.
Yeah, a real beauty.
The difference was that Columbus then led a fleet of over a dozen ships and more than 1500 men back on a Second Voyage (and made 2 more Atlantic crossing exploratory voyages after that).
The World changed because of Columbus’s Voyage of discovery.
There is some proof (’chickens’ believe it or not) that some Chinese fishing boats, blown by storms, made it to South America, but little came of it.
I wonder how widely they’ll tour US. I presume they plan some as a fundraising effort. Replica Nina has done so widely including far upstream on the Mississippi, although they had to use a modern engine to get there - river isn’t wide enough to tack and sail upstream. This ship is likely less suited for sailing up river than Columbus’s 2k years newer tech, yet I doubt they’d use the ancient solution of slave rowers.