Carvel (boat building) in the context of "Tongue and groove"

A carrack (Portuguese: nau; Spanish: nao; Catalan: carraca) is a three- or four-masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolving from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for European trade from the Mediterranean to the Baltic and quickly found use with the newly found wealth of the trade between Europe and Africa and then the trans-Atlantic trade with the Americas. In their most advanced forms, they were used by the Portuguese and Spaniards for trade between Europe, Africa and Asia starting in the late 15th century, before being gradually superseded in the late 16th and early 17th centuries by the galleon.

In its most developed form, the carrack was a carvel-built ocean-going ship: large enough to be stable in heavy seas, and capacious enough to carry a large cargo and the provisions needed for very long voyages. The later carracks were square-rigged on the foremast and mainmast and lateen-rigged on the mizzenmast. They had a high rounded stern with aftcastle, forecastle and bowsprit at the stem. As the predecessor of the galleon, the carrack was one of the most influential ship designs in history; while ships became more specialized in the following centuries, the basic design remained unchanged throughout this period.

Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Spain and Portugal. They were first used as armed cargo carriers by Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the Age of Sail, and they were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-17th century. Galleons generally carried three or more masts with a lateen fore-and-aft rig on the rear masts, were carvel built with a prominent squared off raised stern, and used square-rigged sail plans on their fore-mast and main-masts.

Such ships played a major role in commerce in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and were often drafted into use as auxiliary naval war vessels—indeed, they were the mainstay of contending fleets through most of the 150 years of the Age of Exploration—before the Anglo-Dutch wars made purpose-built warships dominant at sea during the remainder of the Age of Sail.

Clinker-built, also known as lapstrake-built, is a method of boat building in which the edges of longitudinal (lengthwise-running) hull planks overlap each other.

The technique originated in Northern Europe, with the first known examples using metal fastenings that join overlapped planks in c. 310-320 AD. It was employed by the Anglo-Saxons, Frisians, and Scandinavians in the early middle ages, and later in the Basque shipbuilding region where the Newport medieval ship was built. It was also used in cogs, the other major ship construction type found in Northern Europe in the latter part of the medieval period.