40 Fun Facts About Caravel

Which stinging sea creature is named for its float's likeness to a caravel under full sail?

The Portuguese man o' war has a gas-filled float that reminded sailors of a small warship under full sail. The animal is not a true jellyfish at all, but a colony of tiny units working as one.

Which Columbus caravel, his fastest ship in 1492, shares its name with Lonesome George's Galápagos island?

La Pinta carried the lookout who first sighted land in October 1492. Centuries later a Galápagos island was named in the ship's honor, and it became home to the last tortoise of his kind.

Columbus sailed home on the caravel Niña after his flagship ran aground on which holiday in 1492?

Christmas Day 1492 ended with the flagship stuck fast on a sandbank and abandoned. Her timbers went into a fort on shore, and the admiral finished the voyage aboard his smallest ship.

Sailors on Columbus's caravel Niña are said to have copied which invention from Caribbean islanders in 1492?

Hammock beds caught on after the crew saw islanders sleeping in hanging nets. Navies across Western Europe later adopted the idea, which saved space on crowded decks.

The caravel Santiago was wrecked off Patagonia in 1520 while scouting for which explorer's globe-circling fleet?

Ferdinand Magellan had sent the ship ahead to survey the coast when a storm drove it onto the shore. Nearly all the crew escaped, and two sailors walked overland to report the wreck.

Life-size replicas of Columbus's caravels were shown at an 1893 World's Fair held in which American city?

Chicago staged the World's Columbian Exposition to mark 400 years since the first voyage. Full-size copies of all three of the explorer's ships were among the exhibits.

Lacking a clock that worked at sea, crews on Columbus's caravels told time with which half-hour device?

Sandglass timers called ampolletas ran for half an hour and were flipped the moment they emptied. Counting the turns told the crew how much of the day had passed.

Bound for India in 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet of naus and caravels landed in which future country?

Brazil got its first Portuguese visitors when the fleet anchored there in April 1500. The crews spent days loading water, food and wood before sailing on toward Asia.

Which Portuguese prince, a king's younger son, sent caravels down Africa's west coast in the 1400s?

Henry the Navigator paid for the voyages and took a fifth of the profits. Under his direction the lighter, faster caravel took over from the slow, heavy cargo ships of his day.

Before carrying explorers, the caravel began as which working craft on the coasts of Galicia and Portugal?

Fishing boat crews sailed the first caravels, small open craft with one mast and about five men aboard. Shipwrights later added decks and more masts for ocean voyages.

Which explorer's 1497 fleet to India included the small caravel Berrio beside two larger ships?

Vasco da Gama's caravel was the first of his ships to get home in 1499. Its captain, Nicolau Coelho, delivered the news of the new sea route to the king in person.

Which Portuguese captain led two caravels and a supply ship around Africa's southern tip in 1488?

Bartolomeu Dias spent 30 days on the open ocean before reaching land on the far side of Africa. The whole voyage, out and back, took him 16 months.

Which headland near Africa's tip, first passed by caravels in 1488, was reputedly first named for its storms?

Cape of Good Hope is the cheerier name a Portuguese king is said to have chosen, because the cape promised a sea route to the East. Tradition says its discoverer had called it the Cape of Storms.

At which island group did Columbus pause in 1492 to refit the caravel Niña with square sails?

The Canary Islands stop let the crew swap her triangular sails for square ones, which suit a steady following wind. A broken rudder on another ship was replaced there too.

Near which mid-Atlantic islands did a 1493 storm almost capsize Columbus's caravel Niña on the voyage home?

Azores waters turned so violent that the admiral and his crew vowed to make pilgrimages if they lived. The little ship rode out the storm and was back in Spain a month later.

Storm-driven on the way home in 1493, Columbus's caravel Niña first reached mainland Europe at which port?

Lisbon was the capital of Portugal, Spain's great rival at sea, and a second storm had forced the ship in. She reached her own home port eleven days later.

Which brass instrument did caravel pilots use to measure the Sun's height and find their latitude?

Astrolabe readings of the noon Sun told a pilot how far north or south he was. Sea versions were made of heavy brass so that wind and a rolling deck would not swing them about.

Some see the armed square-rigged caravel as a forerunner of which fighting ship of the Spanish treasure fleets?

Galleon hulls resembled the armed caravel's, which is why some scholars call that ship its forerunner. Galleons joined Portugal's India fleets in the early 1500s, and the big cargo ships then carried fewer guns.

Columbus's flagship Santa María was not a caravel but an example of which larger, heavier cargo ship?

Carrack hulls could hold far more than a caravel, which is why they took over the trade routes that caravels had opened. The Portuguese called the type a nau.

Which triangular sail, used in the Mediterranean since Roman times, let caravels work against the wind?

Lateen sails hang from a long yard set at a slant across the mast, running fore and aft. With that rig the caravel became known for sailing to windward and for its speed.

In the 1480s the caravels of Diogo Cão reached and explored the mouth of which great African river?

Congo River country was the prize of Cão's first voyage in 1482. He sent messengers upstream to find the local king, then pressed on south along the coast of what is now Angola.

What did Portuguese caravel captains set up on African headlands as markers called padrões?

Stone pillars topped with a cross and the royal arms recorded each landfall and claimed it for Portugal. Earlier wooden markers had rotted quickly in the tropical climate.

The cross on caravel sails belonged to which Portuguese knightly brotherhood, heir to the Templars?

Order of Christ knights inherited the Templars' property when that older order was abolished. The prince who sent the first caravels south was the order's governor.

Ship sizes in the caravel's day were counted in tons, a measure that began with large casks of which cargo?

Wine travelled in huge casks called tuns, and a ship was rated by how many of them it could stow. A typical caravel of the 1400s was rated at only 50 or 60 tons.

Which explorer sailed the 50-ton caravel Matthew from Bristol to North America in 1497 for the English crown?

John Cabot crossed with a crew of only about 18 and reached North America on 24 June 1497. A replica of his ship repeated the Atlantic crossing 500 years later.

Notorious, a caravel replica launched in 2011, was inspired in part by the legendary Mahogany Ship of which country?

Australia's Mahogany Ship is a wreck said to lie under sand dunes on the Victorian coast, last seen in 1886. Some writers claim it was a Portuguese caravel, but no one has found it to check.

On which headland at Portugal's southwest tip is a prince said to have gathered mapmakers and shipbuilders?

Sagres is where tradition places a school of navigators and mapmakers in the 1400s. Historians now doubt that any formal school existed, but the legend has stuck to the headland.

Which Algarve harbor town, base of many early caravel voyages, shares its name with Nigeria's largest city?

Lagos was the main base for Portuguese expeditions down the West African coast in the 1400s. The Nigerian city may well have taken its name from the Portuguese town.

The name 'caravel' is usually traced back to 'karabos', a word for a light ship in which ancient language?

Greek gave the word to Latin, where it named a small wicker boat. It then passed into Portuguese as 'caravela' and reached English from there.

Portugal's 'Strait Armada' of armed caravels was created to guard shipping near which narrow sea passage?

Gibraltar patrols paired the caravels with galleys and other small warships. King Manuel I also sent armed caravels out to shield ships coming home from India.

Columbus's favorite caravel, Niña, sailed under which official name honoring a female saint?

Santa Clara was the name on the books, but everyone used a nickname that probably punned on her owner, Juan Niño. Spanish ships of the day usually had both a saint's name and a nickname.

Which Andalusian port was ordered by the Spanish crown to supply Columbus with two caravels in 1492?

Palos owed the crown a penalty for an earlier offence, and the sentence was two armed caravels at the town's own cost. The order was read out to the townspeople in May 1492.

Which family of seafaring brothers from Andalusia captained both of Columbus's caravels on the 1492 voyage?

Pinzón brothers Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez each commanded a caravel. Martín's standing as a shipowner and expert sailor is what persuaded local men to sign on.

Chartered for an unauthorized trip to Rome, Columbus's caravel Niña was seized by a corsair off which island?

Sardinia was where her captain slipped away from his captors, stole a boat, rowed back to his ship and sailed her home to Spain. She later crossed the Atlantic again.

A full-size replica of Columbus's caravel Niña sailed to Costa Rica in 1991 to appear in which Ridley Scott film?

1492: Conquest of Paradise was released for the 500th anniversary of the first voyage. Its replica star had been built by hand, using only adzes, axes, hand saws and chisels.

Alvise Cadamosto, who explored West Africa in a Portuguese caravel in 1455, came from which Italian city?

Venice lost a young galley trader when Cadamosto, held up by bad weather on the Portuguese coast, took an offer to sail south instead. Historians prize his accounts of West African life.

Which Portuguese technique had homebound caravels swing far out into the Atlantic to pick up westerly winds?

Volta do mar means 'turn of the sea'. Rather than fight headwinds along the African coast, pilots sailed a wide arc through open ocean, a trick Columbus also needed to get home.

Square-rigged caravels fought beside larger Portuguese ships in which decisive 1509 clash off India's coast?

The Battle of Diu saw a Portuguese fleet with six caravels beat a combined force from Mamluk Egypt, Gujarat and Calicut. Four of the six were the big square-rigged kind built for fighting.

The Molasses Reef Wreck, thought to be a caravel lost in the early 1500s, lies in which island group?

Turks and Caicos waters hid the wreck until treasure hunters found it, and its guns proved too early for a treasure ship. It is the oldest European wreck in the Americas to be scientifically excavated.

Despite its square foresails, Portuguese sailors nicknamed the square-rigged caravel after which other shape?

Round was the Iberian sailor's word for a square sail bellying out in the wind, so the ship became the 'caravela redonda'. It also carried a forecastle, which its smaller cousin could not.