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tons on the lateeners. In Venice calculated productivity again points to a rise of
three-and-a-half-fold from 1229 to1400 (Gertwagen, 2004: 555). Mariners displaced
from the coche had to seek more difficult labor on merchant galleys; perhaps some
also turned to piracy, which flourished in this intensive period of trade.
Furthermore, since the cocha was tubbier than contemporary Mediterranean cargo
ships, it created a saving in the wood needed to build the hull. This, together with the
advantageous defensive abilities provided by its shape, explains its general adoption,
replacing naves in the Mediterranean. Like the cocha, the carrack demanded one man
per five tons. On the other hand, for all types of galley, where the size of the crew
remained constant because of the needs of defense and rowing, the adoption of the
square sail was not economical. When these vessels grew in size, in Venice great galley
sailers for pilgrims even carried three lateen masts, the sail on the main mast in some
cases being replaced by a square one. These improvements may have enabled them to
claw off the great trunk routes along the coasts (Gertwagen, 2004: 558).
After the cocha, the carrack introduced another innovation in propulsion: the fore-
mast with a square sail. This evolution likely took place at the end of the fourteenth
century, parallel to the growth in ships’ size that necessitated technology to balance
out the sail plan for handling these vessels. It is thus the earliest evidence for the quasi
full-rigged ship with the form and structural elements essential for launching the age
of exploration—pre-dating by almost 100 years the traditional dating for such an
evolution (Mott, 1994).
The other major improvement in rigging took place by the 1460s with the
introduction of a topsail on the main mast, which contributed significantly to the
drive-section of the ship’s sail plan without increasing the difficulty of handling. By
the late 1470s, a lateen rig, bonnaventura, could set a course at 80º to the wind and
consequently claw off the lee shore. This addition brought to completion the
full-rigged ship of the age of oceanic discoveries (Mott, 1994; Friel, 1994: 80–81)
and was adopted by the Iberian caravel.
The caravel was by the late fifteenth century a three-master with a square sail on
the main and fore masts, and a lateen sail on the mizzen mast that facilitated crossing
the Atlantic. Over time the caravel increased in size and length-to-breath ratio, to
enhance carrying capacity. It was in such ships that Christopher Columbus set out on
his expedition in 1492. We have to await the finding of a caravel wreck to study the
physical remains of this Iberian type of ship (Schwartz, 2012), whose heyday lasted
only a century. From the mid-sixteenth century it was gradually replaced in the
Mediterranean by the galleon, mostly used by the Spaniards, Portuguese and the
Venetians. The galleon’s features, however, were shared by ships of other European
peoples. The caravel and the galleon were armed with heavy artillery: their main use
was military. To withstand the weight and the shock of firing the artillery, the hull of
the galleon had more ribs and bracing than ships designed solely for cargo. It had a
prominent beak below the bowsprit that reminds us of the rams of the traditional
galleys. The forecastle was always lower than the structures aft, giving the galleon a
distinctive, low-slung crescent profile. The high structures of the main mast enhanced
the defensibility of the ship against grappling and boarding, still common in this era.
But with changes of military tactics, castles fore and aft were no longer needed to
defend against boarding, and hulls became longer, more streamlined and lower in the
water so as to improve sailing qualities.