Young Blonde Girl Posing With The Large Ship Model

In the 16th century, the use of freeboard and freeing ports become widespread on galleons. The English modified their vessels to maximize their firepower and demonstrated the effectiveness of their doctrine, in 1588, by defeating the Spanish Armada.
At this time, ships were developing in Asia in much the same way as Europe. Japan used defensive naval techniques in the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1281. It is likely that the Mongols of the time took advantage of both European and Asian shipbuilding techniques. During the 15th century, China's Ming Dynasty assembled one of the largest and most powerful naval fleet in the world for the diplomatic and power projection voyages of Zheng He. Elsewhere in Korea in the 15th century, one of the world's first iron-clads, the turtle ship, was also developed. In Japan, during the Sengoku era from the fifteenth to 17th century, the great struggle for feudal supremacy was fought, in part, by coastal fleets of several hundred boats, including the atakebune.
During the Age of the Ajuuraan, the Somali sultanates and republics of Merca, Mogadishu, Barawa, Hobyo and their respective ports flourished, enjoying a lucrative foreign commerce with ships sailing to and coming from Arabia, India, Venetia, Persia, Egypt, Portugal and as far away as China. In the 16th century, Duarte Barbosa noted that many ships from the Kingdom of Cambaya in what is modern-day India sailed to Mogadishu with cloth and spices, for which they in return received gold, wax and ivory. Barbosa also highlighted the abundance of meat, wheat, barley, horses, and fruit on the coastal markets, which generated enormous wealth for the merchants.
Middle Age Swahili Kingdoms are known to have had trade port islands and trade routes with the Islamic world and Asia and were described by Greek historians as "metropolises". Famous African trade ports such as Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa were known to Chinese sailors such as Zheng He and medieval Islamic historians such as the Berber Islamic voyager Abu Abdullah ibn Battua. In the 14th century CE King Abubakari I, the brother of King Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire is thought to have had a great armada of ships sitting on the coast of West Africa. This is corroborated by ibn Battuta himself who recalls several hundred Malian ships off the coast. This has led to great speculation, with historical evidence, that it is possible that Malian sailors may have reached the coast of Pre-Columbian America under the rule of Abubakari II, nearly two hundred years before Christopher Columbus and that black traders may have been in the Americas before Columbus.