With a third gun deck added, she carried 55 guns (later increased to 70). In 1610, the English launched the world’s first triple-deck ship of the line, the Prince Royal. The galleons, with high bow and stern castles, evolved throughout the 17th century into powerful, seaworthy warships, festooned with a variety of guns.

The English development of a faster, sleeker version, the Race-Built Galleon which helped them to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588 and to begin their rise to the premiere naval power in the world.Īs the European powers spread their trade networks across the globe in the 17th century, the need to protect their merchant ships and far-flung colonies led to the growth of professional navies as all-too frequent wars and age-old rivalries now spread onto the world’s oceans. The Galleon developed out of the carrack, becoming the main warship of European navies in the 16th century. Developed from the cog these ships (beginning with the carracks) were ocean-going gun platform and allowed first the Spanish and Portuguese, and later the English, Dutch and French to create great trading and colonial empires that spanned the globe. Though still used to carry cargo and conduct trade, these ocean-going ships were advanced platforms for naval gunnery. In the first half of the 16th century, the northern European maritime nations began developing purpose-built men-of-war, designed specifically to be warships, in place of outfitting a merchant Cog for combat in time of war. Deadliest Blogger continues its presentation of the great warships of history with a look as the main battleships of the Age of Sail: the Ship of the Line!

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