Replicating a caravel

The building of discovery-period ships for the specific purpose of testing the accuracy of carefully determined but hypothetical designs seems to be a more useful approach to replication than fanciful celebratory inventions. Before an experimental replica ship of any type can be built, a number of prerequisites must be met: Sufficient reliable information must be available. All avenues of research—archaeology, history, and ethnology—must be exhausted. An inventory of the technology available to the original shipwrights must be taken. This article outlines the process of replicating an early 16th-century caravel from the formation of a reliable hypothesis through the process of construction, fitting out, fine-tuning, and testing.