At the end of the fourteenth or early in the fifteenth century, the design and construction of ships in northern waters benefited from technical ideas seen in ships from the Mediterranean. Carvel construction, in which the smooth hull is planked with edge-butted timbers, largely replaced traditional clinker construction in which the planking overlapped; the sail area was split over several masts and so could be increased in total area; and a fore-and-aft lateen sail was rigged on the new mizzen mast to improve the ship's performance to windward. The late medieval ship, the most complex of contemporary machinery, has attracted much scholarly attention. Its design and development, as seen in contemporary illustrations, port town seals and archaeological finds, and as described in inventories, accounts and contemporary literature, have been thoroughly examined.

Less scholarly attention has been paid to medieval seamanship. The earliest surviving works on ‘good marinership’ date from early in the sixteenth century and tend to be didactic rather than informative in the same way as contemporary works preached ‘good husbandry’. The problems presented to a ship and her crew by wind and current, at sea or at anchor, do not change, and while the development of new materials has led to very considerable improvements in the design and construction of ships and their equipment, it may safely be assumed that most basic manoeuvres were conducted in a manner similar to current practice.