Caravel

The caravel emerged because Portuguese explorers needed a ship that could sail both with and against the wind—returning home from Africa required beating against the prevailing trade winds that had carried them south. Prince Henry the Navigator's school at Sagres synthesized Arab dhow rigging with European hull design, creating the vessel that would open the world's oceans.

The key innovation was the lateen sail—triangular canvas rigged at an angle to the mast. Arab dhows had used lateen sails for centuries in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean, achieving maneuverability that square-rigged European ships couldn't match. Square sails worked well running before the wind but could only sail within a narrow arc of wind direction. Lateen sails allowed vessels to sail within five points of the wind and even tack against headwinds in a forward zigzag.

Portuguese shipwrights at Sagres, working under Henry's direction, fused this Arab sailing technology with European carvel construction—smooth, edge-joined planking rather than overlapping clinker-built hulls. The resulting caravel displaced 50 to 160 tons with one to three masts, featuring a shallow keel ideal for coastal exploration and river navigation. The fusion was deliberate: Henry assembled experts in cartography, navigation, astronomy, and ship design specifically to solve the problem of African exploration.

The caravel's adaptability made it revolutionary. Near coastlines, lateen rigging provided the maneuverability to navigate unfamiliar waters. For ocean crossings, some caravels could be re-rigged with square sails on the mainmast for better downwind performance—the caravela redonda or 'round caravel.' Columbus demonstrated this flexibility: his Niña was re-rigged from lateen to square sails for the Atlantic crossing, then presumably back to lateen for Caribbean exploration.

The vessel enabled a cascade of discoveries. Portuguese caravels colonized Madeira (1420), the Azores (1439), and Cape Verde (1462)—Atlantic stepping stones that made longer voyages possible. Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 using caravels chosen for their handling in stormy seas. Columbus's 1492 expedition included the caravels Niña and Pinta alongside the larger carrack Santa María.

The caravel's limitations eventually drove its evolution. For long ocean voyages carrying significant cargo, the small caravel lacked capacity. The carrack—larger, higher-sided, with multiple decks—emerged for transoceanic trade. Later, the galleon combined the best features of both. But the caravel remained in service for exploration and coastal patrol well into the 16th century.

The vessel represents a textbook case of technological synthesis. No single component was new—lateen sails existed, carvel construction existed, shallow-draft hull design existed. The innovation was their combination, driven by a specific geographic problem (returning from West Africa against trade winds) and enabled by deliberate institutional investment (Henry's school). The caravel demonstrates how exploration requirements can drive ship design, and how ship design in turn determines which exploration becomes possible.