Caravel
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40 free Caravel trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The caravel was small, light and quick, and for roughly two centuries it went where bigger ships could not. It could work its way against the wind, slip into shallow bays and river mouths, and still cross an ocean. Columbus took two of them on his first Atlantic crossing, and explorers from Portugal used them to chart the coast of Africa mile by mile. This quiz turns the best caravel fun facts into multiple-choice questions. It covers how the ships were rigged and built, where the design came from, the captains who made them famous, and the storms, wrecks and narrow escapes along the way. There are also questions on the caravel's afterlife, from the sea creature that carries its name to the full-size replicas that still sail. The early questions suit kids, families and curious beginners, while the later ones will stretch history fans and model-ship builders. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the quiz works for a classroom unit on the Age of Exploration as well as a quiet solo game.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which stinging sea creature is named for its float's likeness to a caravel under full sail?
Man o' war
The Portuguese man o' war has a gas-filled float that reminded sailors of a small warship under full sail. The animal is not a true jellyfish at all, but a colony of tiny units working as one.
Q 02Which Columbus caravel, his fastest ship in 1492, shares its name with Lonesome George's Galápagos island?
La Pinta
La Pinta carried the lookout who first sighted land in October 1492. Centuries later a Galápagos island was named in the ship's honor, and it became home to the last tortoise of his kind.
Q 03Columbus sailed home on the caravel Niña after his flagship ran aground on which holiday in 1492?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day 1492 ended with the flagship stuck fast on a sandbank and abandoned. Her timbers went into a fort on shore, and the admiral finished the voyage aboard his smallest ship.
Q 04Sailors on Columbus's caravel Niña are said to have copied which invention from Caribbean islanders in 1492?
Hammock
Hammock beds caught on after the crew saw islanders sleeping in hanging nets. Navies across Western Europe later adopted the idea, which saved space on crowded decks.
Q 05The caravel Santiago was wrecked off Patagonia in 1520 while scouting for which explorer's globe-circling fleet?
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan had sent the ship ahead to survey the coast when a storm drove it onto the shore. Nearly all the crew escaped, and two sailors walked overland to report the wreck.
Q 06Life-size replicas of Columbus's caravels were shown at an 1893 World's Fair held in which American city?
Chicago
Chicago staged the World's Columbian Exposition to mark 400 years since the first voyage. Full-size copies of all three of the explorer's ships were among the exhibits.
Q 07Lacking a clock that worked at sea, crews on Columbus's caravels told time with which half-hour device?
Sandglass
Sandglass timers called ampolletas ran for half an hour and were flipped the moment they emptied. Counting the turns told the crew how much of the day had passed.
Q 08Bound for India in 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet of naus and caravels landed in which future country?
Brazil
Brazil got its first Portuguese visitors when the fleet anchored there in April 1500. The crews spent days loading water, food and wood before sailing on toward Asia.
Q 09Which Portuguese prince, a king's younger son, sent caravels down Africa's west coast in the 1400s?
Henry the Navigator
Henry the Navigator paid for the voyages and took a fifth of the profits. Under his direction the lighter, faster caravel took over from the slow, heavy cargo ships of his day.
Q 10Before carrying explorers, the caravel began as which working craft on the coasts of Galicia and Portugal?
Fishing boat
Fishing boat crews sailed the first caravels, small open craft with one mast and about five men aboard. Shipwrights later added decks and more masts for ocean voyages.
Q 11Which explorer's 1497 fleet to India included the small caravel Berrio beside two larger ships?
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama's caravel was the first of his ships to get home in 1499. Its captain, Nicolau Coelho, delivered the news of the new sea route to the king in person.
Q 12Which Portuguese captain led two caravels and a supply ship around Africa's southern tip in 1488?
Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias spent 30 days on the open ocean before reaching land on the far side of Africa. The whole voyage, out and back, took him 16 months.
Q 13Which headland near Africa's tip, first passed by caravels in 1488, was reputedly first named for its storms?
Cape of Good Hope
Q 21In the 1480s the caravels of Diogo Cão reached and explored the mouth of which great African river?
Congo
Congo River country was the prize of Cão's first voyage in 1482. He sent messengers upstream to find the local king, then pressed on south along the coast of what is now Angola.
Q 22What did Portuguese caravel captains set up on African headlands as markers called padrões?
Stone pillars
Stone pillars topped with a cross and the royal arms recorded each landfall and claimed it for Portugal. Earlier wooden markers had rotted quickly in the tropical climate.
Q 23The cross on caravel sails belonged to which Portuguese knightly brotherhood, heir to the Templars?
Order of Christ
Cape of Good Hope is the cheerier name a Portuguese king is said to have chosen, because the cape promised a sea route to the East. Tradition says its discoverer had called it the Cape of Storms.
Q 14At which island group did Columbus pause in 1492 to refit the caravel Niña with square sails?
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands stop let the crew swap her triangular sails for square ones, which suit a steady following wind. A broken rudder on another ship was replaced there too.
Q 15Near which mid-Atlantic islands did a 1493 storm almost capsize Columbus's caravel Niña on the voyage home?
Azores
Azores waters turned so violent that the admiral and his crew vowed to make pilgrimages if they lived. The little ship rode out the storm and was back in Spain a month later.
Q 16Storm-driven on the way home in 1493, Columbus's caravel Niña first reached mainland Europe at which port?
Lisbon
Lisbon was the capital of Portugal, Spain's great rival at sea, and a second storm had forced the ship in. She reached her own home port eleven days later.
Q 17Which brass instrument did caravel pilots use to measure the Sun's height and find their latitude?
Astrolabe
Astrolabe readings of the noon Sun told a pilot how far north or south he was. Sea versions were made of heavy brass so that wind and a rolling deck would not swing them about.
Q 18Some see the armed square-rigged caravel as a forerunner of which fighting ship of the Spanish treasure fleets?
Galleon
Galleon hulls resembled the armed caravel's, which is why some scholars call that ship its forerunner. Galleons joined Portugal's India fleets in the early 1500s, and the big cargo ships then carried fewer guns.
Q 19Columbus's flagship Santa María was not a caravel but an example of which larger, heavier cargo ship?
Carrack
Carrack hulls could hold far more than a caravel, which is why they took over the trade routes that caravels had opened. The Portuguese called the type a nau.
Q 20Which triangular sail, used in the Mediterranean since Roman times, let caravels work against the wind?
Lateen
Lateen sails hang from a long yard set at a slant across the mast, running fore and aft. With that rig the caravel became known for sailing to windward and for its speed.
Order of Christ knights inherited the Templars' property when that older order was abolished. The prince who sent the first caravels south was the order's governor.
Q 24Ship sizes in the caravel's day were counted in tons, a measure that began with large casks of which cargo?
Wine
Wine travelled in huge casks called tuns, and a ship was rated by how many of them it could stow. A typical caravel of the 1400s was rated at only 50 or 60 tons.
Q 25Which explorer sailed the 50-ton caravel Matthew from Bristol to North America in 1497 for the English crown?
John Cabot
John Cabot crossed with a crew of only about 18 and reached North America on 24 June 1497. A replica of his ship repeated the Atlantic crossing 500 years later.
Q 26Notorious, a caravel replica launched in 2011, was inspired in part by the legendary Mahogany Ship of which country?
Australia
Australia's Mahogany Ship is a wreck said to lie under sand dunes on the Victorian coast, last seen in 1886. Some writers claim it was a Portuguese caravel, but no one has found it to check.
Q 27On which headland at Portugal's southwest tip is a prince said to have gathered mapmakers and shipbuilders?
Sagres
Sagres is where tradition places a school of navigators and mapmakers in the 1400s. Historians now doubt that any formal school existed, but the legend has stuck to the headland.
Q 28Which Algarve harbor town, base of many early caravel voyages, shares its name with Nigeria's largest city?
Lagos
Lagos was the main base for Portuguese expeditions down the West African coast in the 1400s. The Nigerian city may well have taken its name from the Portuguese town.
Q 29The name 'caravel' is usually traced back to 'karabos', a word for a light ship in which ancient language?
Greek
Greek gave the word to Latin, where it named a small wicker boat. It then passed into Portuguese as 'caravela' and reached English from there.
Q 30Portugal's 'Strait Armada' of armed caravels was created to guard shipping near which narrow sea passage?
Gibraltar
Gibraltar patrols paired the caravels with galleys and other small warships. King Manuel I also sent armed caravels out to shield ships coming home from India.