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The carrack Victoria of Magellan.

Columbus' Ships (G.A. Closs, 1892): The Santa Maria and Pinta are shown as carracks; the Niña (left), as a caravel.

A carrack or nau was a three- or four-masted sailing ship developed in 15th century Western Europe for use in the Atlantic Ocean. It had a high rounded stern with large aftcastle, forecastle and bowsprit at the stem. It was first used by the Portuguese (its creators), and later by the Spanish, to explore and map the world. It was usually square-rigged on the foremast and mainmast and lateen-rigged on the mizzenmast.

Carracks were ocean-going ships: large enough to be stable in heavy seas, and roomy enough to carry provisions for long voyages. They were the ships in which the Portuguese and the Spanish explored the world in the 15th and 16th centuries. In Portuguese this type was called 'nau', while in Spanish it is called 'carraca' or 'nao' . In French it was called a 'caraque' or 'nef'.

As the forerunner of the great ships of the age of sail, the carrack was one of the most influential ship designs in history; while ships became more specialized, the basic design remained unchanged throughout the Age of Sail.^[1]

Origins[link]

By the Late Middle Ages the cog, and cog-like square-rigged vessels, were widely used along the coasts of Europe, in the Baltic, and also in the Mediterranean. Given the conditions of the Mediterrenean, but not exclusively restricted to it, galley type vessels were extensively used there, as were various two masted vessels, including the caravels with their lateen sails. These and similar ship types were familiar to Portuguese navigators and shipwrights. As the Portuguese gradually extended their explorations and trade ever further south along Africa's Atlantic coast during the 15th century they needed a larger and more advanced ship for their long oceanic adventures. Gradually, they developed the carrack^[2] from a fusion and modification of aspects of the ship types they knew operating in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean and a new, more advanced form of sail rigging that allowed much improved sailing characteristics in the heavy winds and waves of the Atlantic ocean.

A typical three-masted carrack such as the São Gabriel had six sails: bowsprit, foresail, mizzen, spritsail, and two topsails.

Carracks in Asia[link]

From around 1515, Portugal had trade exchanges with Goa in India, consisting of 3 to 4 carracks leaving Lisbon with silver to purchase cotton and spices in India. Out of these, only one carrack went on to Ming China in order to purchase silk, also in exchange for Portuguese silver.

From the time of the acquisition of Macau in 1557, and their formal recognition as trade partners by the Chinese, the Portuguese Crown started to regulate trade to Japan, by selling to the highest bidder the annual "Captaincy" to Japan, in effect conferring exclusive trading rights for a single carrack bound for Japan every year. That trade continued with few interruptions until 1638, when it was prohibited on the grounds that the ships were smuggling priests into Japan.

In the middle of the 16th century the first galleons were developed from the carrack. The galleon design came to replace that of the carrack although carracks were still in use as late as the early 17th century.

Famous carracks[link]

• Santa María, in which Christopher Columbus made his first voyage to America in 1492.
• São Gabriel, commanded by Vasco da Gama in the 1497 Portuguese expedition from Europe to India by circumnavigating Africa.
• Frol de la mar, served over nine years in the Indian Ocean, sinking in 1512 with Afonso de Albuquerque after the conquest of Malacca with a huge booty, making it one of the mythical lost treasures.
• Victoria, the first ship in history to circumnavigate the globe (1519 to 1522), and the only survivor of the Spanish expedition.
• La Dauphine, Verrazzano's ship to explore the Atlantic coast of North America in 1524.
• Grande Hermine, in which Jacques Cartier first navigated the Saint Lawrence River in 1535. The first European ship to sail on this river past the Gulf.
• Santo António, or St. Anthony, the personal property of King John of Portugal, wrecked off Gunwalloe Bay in 1527, the salvage of whose cargo almost led to a war between England and Portugal.
• Great Michael, a Scottish ship, at one time the largest in Europe.
• Mary Rose, Henri Grâce à Dieu and Peter Pomegranate, built during the reign of Henry VIII — English military carracks like these were often called great ships.
• Grace Dieu, commissioned by Henry V
• Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai, a war ship built in India by the Portuguese
• Santa Anna, a particularly modern design commissioned by the Knights Hospitaller in 1522 and sometimes hailed as the first armoured ship.
• Madre de Deus, which was seized by the Royal Navy off Flores Island in 1592 with an enormously valuable cargo.
• Santa Catarina, which was seized by the Dutch East India Company off Singapore in 1603.
• Peter von Danzig, ship of the Hanseatic League in 1460s-1470s.

See also[link]

• Medieval ships
• Portuguese India Armadas

References[link]

1. ^ Konstam, A. (2002). The History of Shipwrecks. New York: Lyons Press. pp. 77–79. ISBN 1-58574-620-7. 
2. ^ The origin of the word carrack is usually traced back through the medieval European languages to the Arabic, and from thence to the Greek κέρκουρος (kerkouros) meaning approximately "lighter (barge)" (literally, "shorn tail", a possible reference to the ship's flat stern). Its attestation in Greek literature is distributed in two closely related lobes. The first distribution lobe, or area, associates it with certain light and fast merchantmen found near Cyprus and Corfu. The second is an extensive attestation in the Oxyrhynchus corpus, where it seems most frequently to describe the Nile barges of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. Both of these usages may lead back through the Phoenician to the Akkadian kalakku, which denotes a type of river barge. The Akkadian term is assumed to be derived from a Sumerian antecedent. Sumerian antecedent A modern reflex of the word is found in Arabic and Turkish kelek "raft; riverboat". Gong, Y (1990). "kalakku: Überlegungen zur Mannigfaltigkeit der Darstellungsweisen desselben Begriffs in der Keilschrift anhand des Beispiels kalakku". Journal of Ancient Civilizations 5: 9–24. ISSN 1004-9371. 

Further reading[link]

• Kirsch, Peter (1990). The Galleon. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-546-2. 
• Nair, V. Sankaran (2008). Kerala Coast: A Byway in History. (Carrack: Word Lore). Trivandrum: Folio. ISBN 978-81-906028-1-5. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carracks

Look up carrack in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Development of the Square-Rigged Ship: from the carrack to the full-rigger
• Computer modeling of a Portuguese carrack

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2011)

Paul Carrack
Paul Carrack, 2009
Background information
Born	(1951-04-22) 22 April 1951 (age 61)
Origin	Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
Genres	Blue-eyed soul, pop rock, soft rock
Instruments	Vocals, keyboard, guitar, bass, organ, piano
Years active	1960s—
Labels	Vertigo, Chrysalis, Columbia, Ark 21, Compass
Associated acts	Eagles, Warm Dust, Ace, Roxy Music, Squeeze, Nick Lowe, Mike + The Mechanics
Website	carrack-uk.com

Paul Carrack (born 22 April 1951) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Carrack has been a member of several bands including Ace, Squeeze, Mike + The Mechanics, and Roxy Music, been a session and touring musician for several others including Nick Lowe, and has enjoyed success as a solo artist as well. His distinctive voice appears on some of his affiliated bands' best-known hits. He was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England.

Career[link]

1970s: Warm Dust, Ace and Roxy Music[link]

Carrack's recording career began with the jazz rock band Warm Dust, who released three albums of original material between 1970 and 1972. Carrack was the keyboard player for the band, occasionally playing other instruments, with Les Walker as the lead vocalist.

After Warm Dust broke up, Carrack and Warm Dust bassist Tex Comer helped to found the pub rock band Ace. Carrack both wrote and was vocalist on "How Long?", Ace's debut single – a hit in both the UK and US in 1975. However, no further Ace recordings enjoyed that same level of popularity.

In 1977 Ace disbanded, and Carrack began working as a backing musician for Frankie Miller. Subsequently, he was a member of Roxy Music, playing keyboards on their 1979 reunion album Manifesto. Carrack would also play on the next two Roxy Music albums, but as a session musician, not a band member.

1980s: working solo and as a session musician[link]

Shortly after leaving Roxy Music full time, Carrack issued his first solo album, 1980's Nightbird. It was not a commercial success.

In 1981, Glenn Tilbrook recruited Carrack to join Squeeze as a replacement for long-time keyboardist Jools Holland. This new Squeeze line-up achieved international success with the album East Side Story, with Carrack as vocalist on the song "Tempted", their biggest US hit at the time. However, by 1982, Carrack had left the band and was replaced by keyboardist Don Snow.

Beginning in late 1981, Carrack joined up with Nick Lowe in a band that featured Lowe, Carrack, Martin Belmont on guitar, James Eller on bass and Bobby Irwin on drums. This band, referred to as Noise To Go, existed to back both Carrack on his solo recordings, and Lowe on his. (This was similar to the arrangement Lowe had with Dave Edmunds and Rockpile in the late 1970s.) Noise To Go also backed Lowe's wife Carlene Carter on her 1981 album Blue Nun.

After Carrack's 1982 solo album Suburban Voodoo, Eller left Noise To Go, and Nick Lowe took over bass duties within the group. The group was rechristened Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit, and recorded two albums from 1983 to 1985, with Lowe as lead vocalist. The group also backed John Hiatt on side two of Hiatt's 1983 album Riding With The King.

During this era, Carrack also worked as a session musician for The Smiths and The Pretenders.

Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit dissolved in 1985, and Carrack was contacted by Mike Rutherford (of Genesis) who asked him to join Rutherford's new side project, Mike + The Mechanics. Initially, Carrack and Paul Young were alternating lead vocalists for the group. He sang lead on their 1985 hit "Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)".

In 1986, Carrack was a member of Roger Waters' newly-formed backing band, The Bleeding Heart Band, recording tracks for the soundtrack of the film When the Wind Blows. The following year, Waters (still accompanied by Carrack and the Bleeding Hearts) released a solo album, Radio KAOS and toured the US and Europe. Carrack often filled in as an unofficial support act on the tour, usually playing "Tempted" to warm up the crowd.

Building on the success of Mike + The Mechanics, Carrack was able to reestablish his solo career in 1987 with the hit album One Good Reason, and the accompanying hit single "Don't Shed a Tear", which reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. From this point forward, Carrack consistently maintained both a solo career and a career in Mike + The Mechanics. This band recorded and toured irregularly due to Rutherford's commitments to Genesis.

In 1989, Mike + The Mechanics had a UK number two and US number one hit with "The Living Years", on which Carrack again sang lead. Also in 1989, Carrack recorded "Romance", a duet with Terri Nunn from the Los Angeles-based synth-pop band Berlin. The song appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Sing, starring Peter Dobson and Lorraine Bracco.

1990s: solo and collaborations[link]

In the 1990s, Carrack's solo career went into abeyance for a few years, although he maintained a career as a session musician. He also continued working with Mike + The Mechanics, who recorded throughout the 1990s. During this era, Carrack played keyboards in the band, and also began to co-compose some of the band's songs with Rutherford.

In 1990, Carrack was recruited to perform in the groundbreaking live stage show of The Wall Live in Berlin before a crowd of 250,000. He sang "Hey You" and was one of the performers on "The Tide Is Turning" with Roger Waters, Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams and Van Morrison.

In 1993, Carrack joined with bassist Tony Levin, drummer Steve Ferrone, guitarist Phil Palmer and keyboardist/producer Rupert Hine to form a band known as Spin 1ne 2wo. They released one album, a self-titled project, made up of classic rock covers including songs by Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Blind Faith, Steely Dan and Bob Dylan. He dueted with Beth Nielsen Chapman on "In The Time It Takes".

Also in 1993, Squeeze had Carrack return for their album Some Fantastic Place and a subsequent tour. With Carrack on vocals, the band re-recorded their hit "Tempted" for the soundtrack to the movie Reality Bites (1994). However, Carrack once again left Squeeze after about a year with the band.

Following his second stint with Squeeze, Carrack joined forces with Timothy B. Schmit and Don Felder of the Eagles for an ambitious but ultimately unrealised recording project. Schmit and Felder soon reunited with the rest of the Eagles and their Hell Freezes Over album, bringing with them one of the songs Carrack co-wrote, "Love Will Keep Us Alive." It was recorded by the Eagles and won an award as being the most-played single in America in 1995.^{[citation needed]} The same year, Mike + the Mechanics scored yet another top 20 hit, "Over My Shoulder".^[1] It not only featured Carrack on lead vocals, but was the first Mechanics hit co-written by him.

Finally in 1996, Carrack resumed his solo career with the album Blue Views.

2000 – present[link]

Carrack maintains an active solo career, as well as his career as a session musician and songwriter. Paul toured solo in 2002, mostly opening for bands such as Supertramp. He also served as the sole lead vocalist for Mike + The Mechanics following the death of Paul Young in 2000. In 2004, Carrack would leave the Mechanics following the release of Rewired, their only album with Carrack as sole lead vocalist. After a lull in Carrack's career, in 2007 the Eagles covered Carrack's "I Don't Want To Hear Anymore" on their long-awaited reunion album Long Road Out Of Eden. The album went to number one in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries around the world.

Carrack embarked on a tour of Germany in May 2009, supported by Canadian artist Brendan Croskerry. In 2010, Carrack released his most recent album A Different Hat, with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra which was arranged by David Cullen.

Session work[link]

Carrack's distinctive voice and keyboard skills have kept him in demand as a session musician on many projects. Some of his credits include:

• Piano on The Pretenders album Learning To Crawl (1983)
• Keyboards on The Smiths' eponymous debut album, The Smiths (1984)
• Keyboards and vocals on Roger Waters' Radio K.A.O.S. (1987) and subsequent tour
• Organ on Elton John's Made in England (1996) and The Big Picture (1997)
• Organ and vocals on B.B. King's Deuces Wild (1997)
• Touring with Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band (2003)

In 1997, Carrack played organ for Elton John on the single "Something About The Way You Look Tonight". It was coupled with "Candle In The Wind '97" on a double A-sided single, which set a new record for best selling single of all time.^[2][3]

Discography[link]

Throughout his career, Carrack has released solo albums during his breaks from band duties and session work. His biggest solo hit, "Don't Shed a Tear," came after he signed as a solo artist to Chrysalis Records in 1987.

Solo albums[link]

• 1980 Nightbird
• 1982 Suburban Voodoo – (US #78)
• 1987 One Good Reason – (US #67)
• 1989 Groove Approved – (US #120)
• 1996 Blue Views – (UK #55)
• 1997 Beautiful World – (UK #88)
• 2000 Satisfy My Soul – (UK #63)
• 2001 Groovin'
• 2002 Still Groovin – [Re-packaging of Groovin with extra tracks and bonus DVD]
• 2003 It Ain't Over – (UK #193)
• 2005 A Soulful Christmas – [Paul Carrack & The SWR Big Band]
• 2005 Winter Wonderland – [Paul Carrack & The SWR Big Band]
• 2007 Old, New, Borrowed and Blue
• 2008 I Know That Name – (UK #152)
• 2010 A Different Hat – (UK #178) – [Paul Carrack with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra]

Hit singles[link]

Solo

• "I Need You" (US # 37, 1982)
• "When You Walk in the Room" (US # 90/UK # 48, 1987)
• "Don't Shed a Tear" (US # 9/UK # 60, 1987)
• "One Good Reason (US # 28, 1988)
• "I Live By The Groove" (US # 31, 1989)
• "Eyes of Blue" (UK # 40, 1996)
• "How Long?" (UK # 32, 1996)
• "Eyes of Blue" (Remix) (UK # 45, 1996)

Ace

• "How Long?" (US # 3/UK # 20 1975)

Squeeze hit singles with Carrack on lead vocal

• "Tempted" (US # 49/UK # 41, 1981)

Mike + The Mechanics hit singles with Carrack on lead vocal

• "Silent Running" (UK # 21/US # 6, 1985)
• "The Living Years" (UK # 2/US # 1, 1989)
• "A Time And Place" (UK # 58, 1991)
• "Everybody Gets A Second Chance" (UK # 56, 1991)
• "Over My Shoulder" (UK # 12, 1995)
• "Another Cup Of Coffee" (UK # 51, 1995)
• "Silent Running" [re-release] (UK # 61, 1996)
• "Now That You've Gone" (UK # 35, 1999)
• "Whenever I Stop" (UK # 73, 1999)

References[link]

• The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Fireside, 2001, p. 4. ISBN 0-7432-0120-5
• Buckley, Peter. The Rough Guide to Rock, Rough Guides, 2003, p. 3. ISBN 1-84353-105-4
• Mann, Brent. 99 Red Balloons...and 100 Other All-Time Great One-Hit Wonders, Citadel Press, 2003, p. 120. ISBN 0-8065-2516-9

External links[link]

• Official website
• Solo singles discography Paul Carrack, Spin 1ne 2wo, Ace comprehensive discography
• Paul Carrack biography at World of Genesis
• A House of Many Rooms – Mike + The Mechanics fansite