You'll notice his lifetime brackets the discovery of America. All things considered Michelangelo's technical expertise was imbedded in his times ~ Leonardo da Vinci also lived in that era. He invented the nut and bolt (among other things).
Basically, if the Greeks and Romans could make statues as well as Michelangelo, they should have been able to build boats that were comparable to those of Columbus' time.
Alas, they didn't do it and showed no sign of doing it. In fact, a really good deep ocean-going boat didn't show up until the 800/900 period when the Goths established permanent relationships with the Sa'ami and adapted their boat hull design to the larger scale needed to travel to Iceland, then Greenland, which they did in short order.
That design had been around since the Greeks first visited the Sa'ami in Scandinavia (200 or 300 BC) but for some reason those intrepid explorers forgot to notice that clinker built boats were more resilient to deep ocean waves and conditions than their own light mediterranean style craft.
Think of it this way ~ we know the Europeans had to wait until the 900s to even see really great ocean going craft that could handle the Atlantic. It took, according to history, another 200 years to take advantage of that design on a large scale (voyages to Iceland). It took another couple of hundred years for that design's advantages to penetrate the Mediterranean mind ~ see Spain, France, Italy, Florence, Greece, etc.
It's not likely the Romans came up with this stuff independently back in 1 AD. However, some unmanned tempest tossed craft are known to have made it to the Americas ~ they've been found.
Hurricanes blew them there. Maybe someone survived. Most likely they didn't.
Challenge. Technological advancement is not linear. In fact, Roman technology was ahead of Renaissance Europe some areas and behind it in others.
“Basically, if the Greeks and Romans could make statues as well as Michelangelo, they should have been able to build boats that were comparable to those of Columbus’ time.”
With no keel, no knowledge of “clinker” building, no “hulk”, and no carrack development? Sure. Right.