[fernando]

Meddling into the navigation of the middle ages, there were ships Egyptian, Fenitian, Greek, Roman, etc. As types we had Isócoros, triacôntoros, pentacôntoros, tessaracôntoros, trieres, liburnas, dromos, quelandios, panfílios, galleys, cáravos, galeaças, galeotas, bergantins, fustas, hólcares, urcas, esnécares, drácares, azurrachas, pecarezas, caravelas, etc. (Sorry, too hard to translate ).
It is written that, at same time of the galley, Romans and Byzantines used a type of Latin embarcation designated as Carabus, a term apparently derived from the Moorish cáravo, of which the Portuguese took knowledge in the whereabouts of the Gibraltar straight, and from which they built up, in smaller proportions, the caravela type. This was an open mouth low draft ship, equipped with both with sailing rig and rowing oars. In the year 1255, a charter granted by King Dom Afonso III mentioned the name of caravela, by then a ship also used for fishing purposes, hence its other name pescareza. From here to its adaptation for discoveries in the African coast and later battling in the Indic, took no time, as already mentioned. It is true that its design provided for gross artillery mounted on its low board decks, as is also true that its inconvenience was the need for a large crew; the thing is, its sail yards was rather long (longer than its masts) and it required a large and experienced crew for the delicate manoeuvre of tacking and board flipping the lateen sails, which constituted a handicap for ships of such dimension. On the other hand, large crews were no problem for large naus (fairly translated as carracks) where artillery power was diminute but their cargo capacity was speechless. Pyrard de Laval gives us a exuberant description of the characteristics and life aboard these giant ships (1600-1610) that one finds hard to believe; yet he was not Portuguese, but a Frenchman, with no need to exuberate in other's favor. He says that their dislocation could go from 1500 to 2000 tons and they could not navigate in waters with less than 10 braces (22 meters). They had four decks the height of a man. The bow and stern castles were so big they resembled actual castles. They could carry an artillery force of 35 to 40 pieces of bronze (no iron), plus some small pieces, like ‘esperas’ and ‘pedreiros’, mounted in the crow’s nests, as these were large enough to lodge ten men.
Their masts were so high that, both main and mizzen had to be made with two parts, as there was no trees with such length. Their sail yards could have 24 braces length (over 50 meters) requiring 200 men to put them up, with the help of two capstans …