What are good resources for learning about the construction and handling of golden age Spanish Galleons?

by boyohboyoboy
kieslowskifan

Although both Golden Age and Galleon can be decidedly tricky terms to nail down in terms of specifics, there are a few books that cover the construction and handling of Habsburg Spain's ships. The relevant chapters of Pablo E. Perez-Mallaina's Spain's Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century should be of use. Six Galleons for the King of Spain: Imperial Defense in the Early Seventeenth Century examines the construction of, well, six galleons for the Spanish crown in the 1620s. The long-term rebirth and eventual failure of Spanish naval power post-1588 is ably covered in the monograph Spanish Naval Power, 1589–1665: Reconstruction and Defeat by David Goodman which examines how the Spanish crown tried and failed to create a modern naval power.

Hopefully this helps.