Ibn Jubayr also travelled to Medina, Mecca Damascus, Mosul, Acre and Baghdad at Basra he saw how Indian timber was carefully used to make Lateen sail ships, returning in 1185 by way of Sicily.
The Northern European adoption of the lateen in the Late Middle Ages was a specialized sail that was one of the technological developments in shipbuilding that made ships more maneuverable, thus, in the historian's traditional progression, permitting merchants to sail out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic Ocean; caravels typically mounted three or more lateens.
•
Until the 14th century, the lateen sail was employed primarily on the Mediterranean Sea, while the Atlantic and Baltic (and Indian Ocean) vessels relied on square sails.
Lateen |