Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai was a higher - castled Portuguese carrack with 140 cannons , launched down in 1520 ( 800t , length 38 m , width 13 m , draft 4 - 4 , 5 м ) . Built in Kochi , India around 1512 it had two square rig masts and is depicted on a painting attributed to Joachim Patinir . In 1524 , it was the flagship of Vasco da Gama , on his third voyage to India . The ship disappeared somewhere along the route on the return journey to Portugal , which set out from India in April 1525 . Its exact fate is uncertain . According to one rumor , D . Luis de Menezes , the dismissed captain of the India naval patrol and brother of the disgraced governor D . Duarte de Menezes ( who was returning on another ship on that same fleet ) , engineered a mutiny and seized control of the ship , setting off with it for a career of piracy in the Indian Ocean . Another rumor relates that it was seized by French corsairs somewhere on the final Atlantic stretch between the Cape of Good Hope and Continental Portugal . Reports of the loss . The report of French seizure - which , if true , would be only the second time a Portuguese India ship was captured by enemy action ( the first was in 1509 ) - was given by the 16th - century chronicler Gaspar Correia ( who is not always reliable , and acknowledges this is hearsay ) and also the 16th - century chronicler Francisco de Andrada . Both Correia and Andrada state that Luís de Menezes went on the " Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai " , and his brother , the ex - governor Duarte de Menezes , on a different ship , the " São Jorge " . The chroniclers report that Duarte was under close watch , for fear he might order the ship to make a dart for Castile or France and avoid the justice awaiting him in Portugal . Reaching Mozambique Island , they heard news from outgoing ships of the next India armada that Duarte ' s affairs back in Portugal were not as dire as he feared . After rounding the Cape of Good Hope , Duarte ordered his ship to stop and replenish water stores at Table Bay ( " aguada de Saldanha " ) , instructing his brother Luís to go on ahead , that he would catch up with him at Saint Helena . As it turns out , a violent tempest hit the South African coast around this time . When Duarte reached Saint Helena , there was no sign of his brother , and he assumed that Luís de Menezes ' s ship had perished in that tempest . In 1527 , John III dispatched a Portuguese ship under Diogo Botelho Pereira to scour the South African coast , from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Correntes , in search for the remains of the ship of Luís de Menezes . Returning Portuguese ships had reported that they had seen from the distance cross - shaped fires along that stretch of coast , which they presumed were erected by shipwrecked Portuguese sailors . It was immediately assumed they were the remnant of Luís de Menezes ' s crew . However , after months of searching , Diogo Botelho found no trace of them . The chroniclers Correia and Andrade report that in 1536 , the Portuguese patrol captain Diogo de Silveira captured a French corsair off Portugal , who confessed that his brother ( also a pirate ) had seized Luís de Menezes ' s ship in the Atlantic a decade earlier . He reported that as the ship was struggling with leaks , Luís surrendered promptly to the French pirate , who after transferring its cargo , ordered the Portuguese ship burned at sea , with its crew ( including Luís ) still on board going down to their deaths . This , according to Correia and Andrada , was the fate of the " Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai " . Although it seems unlikely such a well - armed ship would fall so easily , it is worthwhile remembering she was also heavily - laden with India goods and battered by the tempest and reportedly springing leaks , making her dangerously unseaworthy and vulnerable at the moment of the French attack . This may explain why Luís surrendered her without a fight . ( cf . the capture of other large Portuguese India ships , like the " São Filipe " by Sir Francis Drake in 1587 , and the gigantic " Madre de Deus " by Sir John Burroughs in 1592 . ) However , it is also possible that an error was made in the chronicles and the positions were reversed , that the outgoing governor Duarte went on the larger " Santa Catarina " , his brother Luís on the " S . Jorge " . In this case , it was the " S . Jorge " that was captured by the French , and the " Santa Catarina " sailed on . Correia reports that the first port of call of Duarte ' s ship was at Faro ( in the Algarve ) . While docked there , Duarte got wind of the king ' s sour mood and the fate that awaited him in Lisbon , so he smuggled the greater part of his private treasure off the ship into the care of a female cousin in Faro . Duarte subsequently seized control of the ship and , over the protests of the officers , forced them to drop him ( and the remainder of his baggage ) in Sesimbra ( Duarte ' s seigneural estate ) . That evening , while the ship was anchored off Sesimbra , a gale arose and the ship was thrown and smashed on the shore ( Correia says that as the gale was brewing , someone , on Duarte ' s orders , surreptitiously cut the anchor cables to deliberately set it adrift ) . All the treasure it was carrying was lost . Correia says Duarte ' s intention was " so that people would think all his wealth was lost . . . and he could show equal loss before the king and all mankind , with the loss of his brother and of so many of his people , with the king ' s loss " This could be another possible fate of the " Santa Catarina " . In the aftermath , Duarte de Menezes was called before the royal court at Almeirim , and after a brief interview with the king John III of Portugal , was promptly placed under arrest . He was imprisoned in Torres Vedras , saved from execution by John III in the hope that Duarte could yet be made to confess where he had hidden his private treasure . Reportedly , teams of treasure - hunters , official and unofficial , scoured the beaches around Faro in the hope of finding where he had buried it .