and you can also see the stones used as ballast. They are clearly depicted in the crossection of the lower midships area just under the food stores and extra sails. These ballast stones helped the ship maintain stability while at sea.

As you see in the cut-away, the cargo and ship's supplies are distributed throughout the ship's lower holds to keep the ship on an even keel. Properly stowing these items was critical to the survivability of the ship during a storm at sea, or even in any moderate to heavy seas encountered. If the cargo shifted, it would affect the ship's trim, possibly leading to it keeling over, swamping, and sinking.

The large and small casks seen here most likely contained the preserved foods such as hardtack, salt pork and beef, etc., as well as water. What is not shown in this diagram would be the livestock and fresh produce that would also begin the voyage. Naturally, these would be consumed first before the preserved foods. Also, both crew and officers would purchase foods for their separate 'messes,' or dining groups, which were over and above those stores used by the ship.

Since ships at sea had to be completely self-sufficient, in addition to the necessary food supplies, they also carried extra sails (shown in the diagram), as well as spare spars, ropes of varying diameters, anchors, chains, etc. A ship, properly fitted out, could remain at sea up to two or more years, in theory, without making landfall. Actually, though, few ships did this. Any chance a ship's captain had to replenish fresh water and food supplies would be taken, be it an island or a town.

Of interest, caravels were the first type of ship to be used in the early explorations. Starting out as a type of fishing boat, late in the 16th century, it was used by Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama and others in their early voyages. A caravel normally carried a crew of between 60-90 men.