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The Spanish Galleons

© Cindy Vallar

The Spaniard came in sight, with his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
Thousands of soldiers looked down from her decks and laughed.
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns
Took the break from our sails, and we stayed.
- The Revenge: a Ballad of the Fleet by Alfred Lord Tennyson

High castles fore and aft and multiple decks of guns bring to mind the large galleons with lofty sails and graceful lines that transported the riches of the New World to Spain. Yet, the original galleons used to explore the lands across the oceans rarely surpassed the size of a modern-day offshore fishing boat.

Spain needed seaworthy ships capable of making transoceanic voyages while laden with vast cargoes, but early sea vessels lacked these qualities. Designers borrowed the best characteristics of existing ships to build just such a vessel. From the caravel came the fixed rudder and lateen sails. From the carrack came the sturdy hull and fore and aft castles. The result was the galleon, which combined square and lateen sails rigged on three or four masts with a longer ratio of length to beam and castles more integrated with the structure of the ship.

While the galleon is most often associated with Spain, other nations copied and modified the design. The Dutch enclosed a portion of the originally designed open-air gallery around the stern to provide toilets for the officers. Later, they extended the covering to also provide quarters for the officers. Based on innovations suggested by Sir Francis Drake, English shipbuilders built smaller versions with lower superstructures. These race-built galleons had sleeker hulls that allowed them to move swiftly and although they carried smaller guns, these possessed a longer range than those aboard Spanish galleons. This altered design made the race-built galleon a formidable foe, as evidenced when used against the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Drake's Revenge was one such galleon. Built in 1575, she participated in that battle against the Spanish invasion fleet. This warship later engaged a fleet of fifty-three Spanish warships near the Azores in 1591. She sank two ships outright and only struck her colors fifteen hours after the battle began because the majority of crew, including the captain, was killed or wounded and she had exhausted her supply of gunpowder. The victory for Spain, however, was bittersweet, for the Revenge was so damaged that she sank.

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