John Cabot: The English King's Italian Navigator

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Replica of John Cabot's ship, the Matthew Copyright/Source

Cabot's ship, Matthew, was a caravel, a kind of small sailing ship. It was about 24 metres long and could carry 50 tons of cargo. There were 18 crewmen. It had three masts and a high sterncastle. It was very uncomfortable and unhealthy on these ships, and many people got ill and died on long voyages.

	The drinking water aboard ship was kept in wooden casks. The water in these casks soon went bad. Sometimes by the time people got to the end of the cask there were more maggots than water.

	Below deck "the stench -- ripe and acrid from rat droppings mixed with mildew, rot and the odours of never-washed bodies -- was so strong that scientists of the day speculated that it was a violent explosion of these shipboard vapours that created ball lightning." McFarlane, Peter and Wayne Haimila. Ancient Land, Ancient Sky: Following Canada's Native Canoe Routes. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, ©1999, p. 37.