CARAVEL, a light ship, of the i 5th and 16th centuries, much used by the Spanish and Portuguese for long voyages. It was a broad-beamed vessel, with a double tower at the stern (the sterncastle), and a single one in the bows (the forecastle, a term which survives). Two of the three ships in which the Columbus expedition sailed were caravels, and the ship of Columbus himself was not fully decked. A nautical writer says that "her figure was that of a cask sawn in halves lengthwise and raised up at both ends. Such a contrivance might be safely trusted to blow along before the breeze ; it is impossible to understand how vessels thus built and rigged managed to keep a true course when they braced up their yards." But they were eminently picturesque, and they made some glorious voyages. Carvel, the older English form of the word, is now used only in the term "carvel-built," for a boat in which the planking is flush with the edges laid side to side, as distinct from one "clinker-built," where the edges overlap.