carrack

 

A carrack or nau was a three- or four-masted sailing ship developed in the Mediterranean in the 15th century. It had a high rounded stern with an aftcastle and a forecastle and bowsprit at the stem. It was square-rigged on the foremast and mainmast and lateen-rigged on the mizzenmast.

Carracks were one of the first proper ocean-going ships in Europe; large enough to be stable in heavy seas, and roomy enough to carry provisions for long voyages. They were the ships in which the Portuguese and the Spanish explored the world in the 15th and 16th centuries. In Portuguese this type was called nau, while in Spanish it is called carraca or nao (both of which meant simply "ship"). In French it was caraque, caravelle or nef.

Early origins

The word carrack is usually traced back through the medieval European languages to the Arabic, and thence to the Greek κέρκουρος (kerkouros) meaning approximately "lighter (barge)" (literally, "shorn tail", a possible reference to the ship's flat stern). Its attestation in Greek literature is distributed in two closely related lobes. The first distribution lobe, or area, associates it with certain light and fast merchantmen found near Cyprus and Corfu. The second is an extensive attestation in the Oxyrhynchus corpus, where it seems most frequently to describe the Nile barges of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. Both of these usages may lead back through the Phoenician to the Akkadian kalakku, which denotes a type of river barge. The Akkadian term is assumed to be derived from a Sumerian antecedent.^[1] A modern reflex of the word is found in Arabic and Turkish kelek "raft; riverboat".^[2]

The kalakku was a barge with goatskin or bladder floats, which might measure up to 15 m in a square or rectangular form, and which, in its later manifestations, was capable of being poled, dragged, rowed, or even sailed up the Tigris or the Euphrates.^[3]

The European carrack may have resulted from a fusion of this design, or that of the Phoenician lighter, with that of the Germanic longship when the latter diffused into the Mediterranean.

Advantages

The carrack was the high seas beast of burden of choice and has been described as the "perfected transport ship".

• it offered the space for crew, provisions and also cargo.
• they were virtually impregnable to attack from small craft, which was often a problem in the East Indies.
• their ability to carry cargo and provisions made them independent of ports en route, and so they had a longer range using the most efficient route.
• the combination of four sails allowed for a fair degree of flexibility - the large square sails provided propulsion, but were reduced in size during storms. The smaller sails at bow and stern allowed for maneuvering, and the lateen sails allowed for sailing across the wind.
• the stable deck allowed for placement of guns, thus making the vessel an effective gun platform. This fact would greatly assist the Portuguese in convincing non-compliant rulers like the Samoothiri Raja in Asia.

However, the large superstructures of these ships made them prone to toppling in strong winds.

Famous carracks

• Great Michael, a Scottish ship, at one time the largest in Europe.
• Mary Rose and Henri Grâce à Dieu — commissioned by Henry VIII - English military carracks like these were often called great ships.
• Santa Anna — a particularly modern design commissioned by the Knights Hospitaller in 1522 and sometimes hailed as the first armoured ship.
• Madre de Deus — which was seized by the Navy Royal off Flores Island in 1592 with an enormously valuable cargo.
• Santa Catarina — which was seized by the Dutch East India Company off Singapore in 1603.
• Santa María — in which Christopher Columbus made his voyage in 1492.
• St Anthony or St. Anthony, the personal property of King John of Portugal, wrecked off Gunwalloe Bay in 1527, the salvage of whose cargo almost led to a war between Britain and Portugal.
• Victoria — the first ship to circumnavigate the globe, from 1519 to 1522. Five Spanish naos left the port of Seville on 11 August 1519 with 243 men. Only the nao Victoria, commanded by Captain Juan Sebastián Elcano, and with only 18 survivors, came back to the same port on 8 September 1522.

Carracks in Asia

From around 1515, Portugal had trade exchanges with Goa in India, consisting in 3 to 4 carracks leaving Lisbon with silver to purchase cotton and spices in India. Out of these, only one carrack went on to China in order to purchase silk, also in exchange for Portuguese silver.

From the time of the acquisition of Macao in 1557, and their formal recognition as trade partners by the Chinese, the Portuguese Crown started to regulate trade to Japan, by selling to the highest bidder the annual "Captaincy" to Japan, in effect conferring exclusive trading rights for a single carrack bound for Japan every year. That trade continued with few interruptions until 1638, when it was prohibited on the ground that the ships were smuggling priests into Japan.

During the 16th century the carrack developed into the galleon.

Trivia

The carrack is thought to be the inspiration behind the fictional Carrack-Class Light Cruiser of the Star Wars saga.^{[citation needed]}

Additional reading

• Kirsch, Peter, The Galleon (1990), Conway Maritime Press, ISBN 0-85177-546-2

External links

• The Development of the Full-Rigged Ship From the Carrack to the Full-Rigger

References

1. ^ Sumerian antecedent
2. ^ Gong, Y. "kalakku: Überlegungen zur Mannigfaltigkeit der Darstellungsweisen desselben Begriffs in der Keilschrift anhand des Beispiels kalakku", Journal of Ancient Civilizations, 5, 1990, 9-24.
3. ^ Sailing a kelek

Types of sailing vessels and rigs

Barca-longa · Barque · Barquentine · Bermuda rig · Bilander · Brig · Brigantine · Caravel · Carrack · Catamaran · Catboat · Clipper · Dutch Clipper · Cog · Corvette · Cutter · Dhow · Fifie · Fluyt · Fore & Aft Rig · Frigate · Full Rigged Ship · Gaff Rig · Galeas · Galiot · Galleon · Gunter Rig · Hermaphrodite Brig · Jackass-barque · Junk · Ketch · Longship · Lugger · Mersey Flat · Multihull · Nao · Norfolk Wherry · Pink · Pocket Cruiser · Polacca · Pram · Proa · Sailing hydrofoil · Schooner · Ship of the Line · Sloop · Smack · Snow · Square Rig · Tall Ship · Thames Sailing Barge · Trimaran · Vinta · Wherry · Windjammer · Windsurfer · Xebec · Yacht · Yawl

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