Caravel
Carabela
- Date
- c. 1440 · confidence medium
- Place
- Lagos and Sagres, Algarve, Portugal
- Credited to
- Portuguese shipyards under Henry the Navigator
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A light, shallow-draught ship with two or three lateen-rigged (later mixed-rigged) masts, highly seaworthy and able to sail close-hauled. The instrument of exploration along the African coast and the Atlantic.
The term qarib/caravela appears in the 13th century for fishing boats; the ocean-going caravel developed around 1430–1450.
What it led to
- the exploration of West Africa, Cape Verde and the rounding of Cape Bojador (1434)
- the voyages of Columbus (the Niña and the Pinta) and Vasco da Gama
- the Age of Discovery and the Atlantic slave trade
Built on
- Stern-post (axial) rudderc. 100 CE
- Lateen sailc. 600
- Magnetic navigational compassc. 1100
- Stern-mounted rudder in Europec. 1180
- Hanseatic cogc. 1200
- Dry compass with wind rosec. 1300
- Madeira and the Azores: start of Portuguese Atlantic expansion1419-1427
- Lateen sail
- Stern-mounted rudder in Europe
- Maghrebi qarib
- Dry compass with wind rose