there's surprisingly not that much scholarship on the subject
That is the annoying bit.
What about the various sources like Bhutta, da Conti and the like, plus the tales Zheng He? They all talk of big, many masted ships.
there's surprisingly not that much scholarship on the subject
Who is Bhutta? Ming sources most likely exaggerate the size of Zheng He's fleet, and like I said above, they barely left any impression on the places they visited. One would think that Arabic, Persian and Hindustani sources would mention the remarkable size of this fleet more often and yet that doesn't seem to be the case. As for Da Conti, I feel his sources are on the same level as Marco Polo, meaning they are unreliable and are exaggerating.That is the annoying bit.
What about the various sources like Bhutta, da Conti and the like, plus the tales Zheng He? They all talk of big, many masted ships.
From one Rasulid chronicle, composed around 1440, reporting the:they barely left any impression on the places they visited.
Not sure the number of masts is a reasonable proxy for size... Again looking at European vessels c. 1500 it wasn't that uncommon for a 90 ton (17 m length) caravel to boast three masts while a Great Ship like Mary Rose or even Heny Gace a Dieu, at over four times it's size would only boast four...That controversy is why I'm less interested in the likes of Zheng He and more in the descriptions by the likes of da Conti's description of ships with 5 masts and the seeming regularity of 3 masted junks in other sources.
The average number of sailors in medieval ships was just a few dozens, far from the 500 sailors per ship of Zheng He. 60 ms ships were also extremely rare if there were any before the 16th century. The Grace Dieu for instance seems to have exaggerated scaling in European sources. The only European ships found to be 60 ms long before the 16th century as far as I know are the two Lake Nemi ships of Caligula, which were more like lake palaces than actual ships to begin with.The source for 120m plus treasure ships appears to derive from a NOVEL written 150 years after serious voyaging wound down.
More contemporary accounts typically give the number of Treasure ships per expedition at about 60ish with around 27000-28000 crew (possibly including soldiers given some of the voyages included some rather extensive fighting on land?) aboard, giving somewhere around 500 sailors (and soldiers?) per ship. This isn't overly outta whack for the crews of of 15th-16th century large Naos/Carracks/ Great Ships (e.g. the Grace Dieu of the 1420s; well below that of the Great Michael of 1511; about equal to that of the Mary Rose; etc.) which varied from about 50 up to 70 m depending upon which end of that time frame you look at... and it's only about twice that of the 'core' crew of a bloody Venetian Great Galley/Galley of Flanders (so named for trading to North West Europe) of the 1300s (estimated to be about 35-40m in length)... if we assume the crew count is about half soldiers
Not sure the number of masts is a reasonable proxy for size... Again looking at European vessels c. 1500 it wasn't that uncommon for a 90 ton (17 m length) caravel to boast three masts while a Great Ship like Mary Rose or even Heny Gace a Dieu, at over four times it's size would only boast four...
All in all, I'm highly skeptical of 100m plus Treasure ships but think a 70ish m one is plausible. The presence of multiple masts on earlier vessels is quite likely but says little about size.
Who is Bhutta?