Editing Caravel (section)

{{Short description|Type of sailing ship}}
{{Redirect|Caravels|the band|Caravels (band)}}
{{About|a type of sailing ship|the hybrid felines|Caraval|other uses}}

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{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2024}}
[[File:Portuguese Caravel.jpg|thumb|200px|Model of a Portuguese caravel, found in the [[Musée national de la Marine]]]]

The '''caravel''' ([[Portuguese language|Portuguese]]: {{lang|pt|caravela}}, {{IPA|pt|kɐɾɐˈvɛlɐ|IPA}}) is a small [[sailing ship]] developed by the Portuguese that may be rigged with just [[lateen]] sails, or with a combination of lateen and [[Square rig|square sails]]. It was known for its agility and speed and its capacity for [[Windward and leeward|sailing windward]] ([[Tacking (sailing)#Beating|beating]]). Caravels were used by the Portuguese and Spanish for the voyages of exploration during the 15th and 16th centuries, in the [[Age of Exploration]].

The caravel is a poorly understood type of vessel. Though there are now some archaeologically investigated wrecks that are most likely caravels, information on this type is limited. We have a better understanding of the ships of the Greeks and Romans of [[classical antiquity]] than we do of the caravel.<ref name="Keith and Carrell 1992">{{cite book |editor1-last=Keith |editor1-first=Donald H |editor2-last=Carrell |editor2-first=Toni L |title=Underwater Archaeology Proceedings from the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference: Kingston, Jamaica 1992 |date=1992 |publisher=Society for Historical Archaeology |isbn=9789992087121}}</ref>{{rp|2}}<ref name="Leshikar-Denton 2014">{{cite book |last1=Leshikar-Denton |first1=Margaret |editor1-last=Catsambis |editor1-first=Alexis |editor2-last=Ford |editor2-first=Ben |editor3-last=Hamilton |editor3-first=Donny L. |title=The Oxford handbook of maritime archaeology |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town |isbn=9780199336005 |edition=First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback}}</ref>{{rp|636}}