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Essay on Ship Design in the Age of Discovery
The sixteenth century saw a crucial and important transition in European navigational techniques. In the 1490's Columbus had relied almost totally on dead reckoning, although Cabot used some techniques of astronomical navigation. The Portuguese crown was already sponsoring the development of techniques and instruments suitable for astronomical position-finding but working pilots did not begin to adopt these new techniques until after 1500, when they were made part of the curriculum for pilots trained in the newly-founded Portuguese Casa da Mina and the Spanish Casa de Contratacion. Basque and Breton pilots played an important role in the spread of these techniques of astronomical position finding to northern Europe, from the innovative Iberian schools of navigation, a process which went on until about 1570. This remarkable technical revolution was not just a one-way street, in which astronomical theorists developed new techniques, which were then passed on to practical navigators. The reports of pilots who had navigated the waters of the New World progressively provided the data that facilitated the production of sophisticated nautical charts.
By 1500 European seamen and shipwrights had developed the "great invention" which made economic development to the New World possible. This invention was the weatherly three-masted ship, one able to sail well into the wind. These vessels could, thus, not merely cross the Atlantic to America but could return on a predictable basis as well. (Unger, 1980). No ship was able to make such a voyage without a pilot skilled in dead reckoning, if not astronomical position finding too. No pilot was capable of such navigation without a small but advanced set of instruments and aids.
The Age of Discovery and expansion
The period from 1400-1600 is termed “the Age of Discovery”, as cross-ocean trading began to take on a life of its own, supported by wealthy noblemen and royalty.......
