How can a big ship be built in secret?

Question

I was wondering how a big ship, for example, like the ones used in the 16th century to perform Columbus' expeditions and the portuguese trips.

How would one be able to build such a thing in secret?

I'm asking this because I'm writign a story where a ship was supposed to be used for a purpose, built for that purpose, and then that purpose, that motivation to use the ship was no longer there.

What would the people who built the ship behave?

Answer 1

In some ways it would have been much easier in the 16th century than today.  For example, in the 16th century the Portuguese were fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland every summer, and some of them could have found a secluded cove there and over-wintered and built a ship.  The winters would have been harsh, but many people did it.  There is still a strong connection between Newfoundland and Portugal.  Building a ship in secret that way would make a good story.  

Today any activity such as building a ship can be "seen" from space via satellite and by everybody really through "google earth" and similar avenues.  So today it would have to be done inside a building, which is not that easy if you are building a ship.  It could be done though on some of the more remote islands in the Pacific I expect if someone had the resources to do it and wanted to.

Answer 2

mabey underground

Answer 3

Good question. It was very hard to keep such a secret, especially for the portuguese who were the pioneers in open sea navigation and invented the ideal boat for that, the portuguese Caravela.

But the portuguese kings were famous for they ultra-top-secret policies concerning sea traveling and explorations, to this day there are many doubts of where exactly the portuguese went, before any other europeans, theories point to the suspicion that the portuguese already knew the Caribbean Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador since at least the 1450's.

There was important factors to the pioneering of the portuguese (the exploration of Africa started as early as 1415): Portugal's border's were defined and established since 1143 (making it the oldest country in Europe) and Portugal wasn't involved in any wars, contrary to practically all the other european nations. That plus the excellent location, facing the Atlantic and the navigation school founded by Prince Henry where he gathered all the best sailors, astronomers, ship builders and map makers in Europe all gave a giant push to the portuguese explorations.

Although there were spanish spies all around, the spanish at the time there are records of a caravela being actually used in the exploration of the african coast by the portuguese, in the 1440's, the spanish didn't have the time, resources, knowledge and money to copy the caravela and start exploring because they were too occupied trying to expel the moors from southern Spain.

But in the 1480's, when spanish ships started to pirate the portuguese caravelas loaded with the gold from today's Ghana, they also started to try and copy the caravela. Eventually, in 1492, when the moors were finally defeated, there was already a version of the portuguese caravela ready and Columbus's ships, particularly the Santa Maria, were copies of the portuguese caravela.

It shouldn't passed unnoticed too that Columbus learned everything, from sea currents to sailing to navigation with the help of the Sun and Stars, etc, with the portuguese, a fact many times unknown.

He was married to a portuguese woman (daugher of one of the early portuguese explorers)  and lived in Portugal (more specifically Madeira island) for more than 10 years before passing to the spanish side, he did a lot of sailing with portuguese caravelas, some say he took part in a secret expedition portuguese/danish in the 1470's to Greenland and perhaps Newfoundland and Labrador, but there are no solid evidences, just a strong suspicion.

There are a lot more histories concerning the Portuguese Empire and Age of Discoveries, you should check them out if you're interested, it's far more important and on a global scale than anything the spanish ever did, but unfortunately the portuguese findings are less known.

PS: All portuguese Caravelas were built in Portugal, more specifically near the city of Porto and in Lisbon's shipyards, then the biggest in the world. From 1515 onward the much larger evolutions of the Caravelas were built around the Portuguese Empire, in Cape Verde, Angola or Mozambique China, Malacca in Malaysia an there were even portuguese shipyards in Nagasaki Japan, a city the portuguese founded and controled.