Gil Eanes passes Cape Bojador
A Portuguese caravel under Gil Eanes sailed south beyond Cape Bojador on the Saharan coast and returned, breaking a psychological rather than a physical barrier: the cape had a reputation among mariners as a point of no return, partly because the prevailing wind and current there make a coastal return northwards very difficult. The solution was the one that shaped the whole century — do not fight back up the coast, stand out to sea to find a favourable wind. Systematic voyaging down the African coast follows from this passage.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Caravel · ship class · Iberian Atlantic · not located
- Volta do mar (the return by sea) · process · Atlantic Ocean · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–1825
The standard single-volume account of Portuguese expansion: Ceuta, the African coast, the Cape route, the carreira da Índia, the Estado da Índia and the institutions that ran them. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted in this session. Boxer is a mid-twentieth-century imperial history and its framing has been substantially revised by later work, particularly on Asian agency and on the limits of Portuguese control; this pack uses it for structure, not for interpretation.
Hutchinson · 1969 · Partly verified
Charles R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415–1825 (London: Hutchinson, 1969)
Recorded on Caravel
- Gil Eanes passes Cape Bojador
- Cabral sights the coast of Brazil
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Cabral sights the coast of Brazil · 1500-04-22