thumb|The carrack [[Victoria (ship)|Victoria of Magellan.]]

A carrack or nau was a three- or four-masted sailing ship developed in the Atlantic Ocean in the 15th century by the Portuguese. 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 ocean-going ships: 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

By the late Middle ages the cog and cog-like two masted vessels, were widely used along the coasts of Europe, particularly in the Atlantic, but also in the Mediterranean. Given the conditions of the Mediterrenean, but not exclusively restricted to it, galley type vessels were extensively used there, as were various two masted vessels. These and similar ship types were familiar to Portuguese navigators and shipwrights. As the Portuguese gradually extended their explorations and trade ever further south along Africa's Atlantic coast during the 15th century they needed a larger and more advanced ship for their long oceanic adventures. Gradually, they developed the carrack
from a fusion and modification of aspects of the ship types they knew operating in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

A typical three-masted carrack such as the São Gabriel had six sails, namely bowsprit, foresail, mizzen, spritsail, and two topsails.

Famous carracks

• Santa María — in which Christopher Columbus made his first voyage to America in 1492.

• São Gabriel - commanded by Vasco da Gama in the 1497 Portuguese expedition from Europe to India by circumnavigating Africa.

• Frol de la mar - over nine years served in the Indian Ocean, sinking in 1512 with Afonso de Albuquerque after the conquest of Malacca with a huge booty, making it one of the mythical lost treasures.

• Victoria — the first ship in history to circumnavigate the globe (1519 to 1522). Five Spanish carracks left the port of Seville on 11 August 1519 with 243 men. Only the Victoria, with only 18 survivors, returned to the same port on 8 September 1522.

• La Dauphine - Verrazzano's ship to explore the Atlantic coast of North America in 1524.

• Santo António — 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.

• Great Michael — a Scottish ship, at one time the largest in Europe.

• Mary Rose and Henri Grâce à Dieu — built during the reign of Henry VIII - English military carracks like these were often called great ships.

• Grace Dieu — commissioned by Henry V

• Santa Catarina Do Monte Sinai — war ship built in India by the Portuguese

• 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 Royal Navy 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.

Carracks in Asia

From around 1515, Portugal had trade exchanges with Goa in India, consisting of 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 Macau 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 grounds that the ships were smuggling priests into Japan.

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