The Ngomeni Shipwreck and Portuguese Indian Route Ships

The recent discovery of a Portuguese shipwreck in Malindi, Kenya, which could be a galleon from Vasco da Gama’s last voyage, triggered this study of the Portuguese ships of this period. This paper is a short summary of what is known about the ships of the Portuguese expansion into the Indian and Pacific Oceans, between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Few Portuguese ships have been found, excavated, and published, and this paper is intended as a critical review of the information available, a summary of what is known about them, and the questions that remain when we try to interpret and reconstruct their remains.