Gil Eanes Rounds Cape Bojador
A Portuguese captain sails past the point where sailors believed the ocean itself turned dangerous, and proves a ship can find its way back
Quick facts
- Captain
- Gil Eanes
- Location
- Cape Bojador, West African coast
- Prior failures
- 12 years of unsuccessful attempts
- Technique
- Volta do mar: sailing out to sea to catch favorable winds home
What happened
For twelve years, ships sent south by Prince Henry had failed to get past Cape Bojador on the West African coast, turning back rather than risk the reefs, shallow water, and the strong currents and headwinds that made the return trip look impossible. In 1434, the Portuguese captain Gil Eanes solved the problem by sailing his caravel well out into the open Atlantic before turning south, away from the coastline entirely, then used the wind patterns to loop back to Portugal after passing the cape. The technique, later called the volta do mar, meant a ship no longer had to fight headwinds along the coast to get home.
Why it matters
Rounding Bojador broke a psychological barrier as much as a physical one. Once one captain proved a ship could go past the cape and still return, Portuguese voyages pushed steadily further down the African coast in the following decades, reaching the Gold Coast by 1471 and the Cape of Good Hope by 1488.
How we know
The World History Encyclopedia's entry on the caravel describes the twelve years of failed attempts and the navigational solution of sailing away from the coast to catch favorable winds and currents home.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Caravel · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- EBSCO Research Starters. Prince Henry the Navigator · General sourceebsco.com · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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