The nau of the Livro Nautico: reconstructing a sixteenth-century Indiaman from texts
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Date
2007-09-17
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Texas A&M University
Abstract
Documents and illustrations show that the premier ship in Portugal's India trade
during the 16th century was the nau, a beamy, three-masted ship, known in northern
Europe as a âÂÂCarrack.â For decades these vessels carried passengers and cargo between
Portugal and Asia. Despite the number of vessels involved, relatively little
archaeological evidence of these ships exists. While 16th century shipbuilding documents
predate the development of ships plans, they include theoretical treatises and scantling
lists. From these documents it is possible to reconstruct the construction of a nau timber
by timber, employing the mathematical relations and formulas used by the Portuguese
shipwrights in conjunction with the timber specifications from a scantling list, creating a
3D computer model of the ship with Rhinoceros 3 modeling software. The result is an
annotated and illustrated construction sequence that shows the placement of every timber
in the vessel.
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Keywords
Portuguese, Shipbuilding