I read about the facts, but what would the actually experience be like here are some more specific questions: How big would the ship be when John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) came to the new world (Canada)? How many crew members would there be? How many ships? Would there be a wheel to turn the ship? How many sails would it have? How old would the crew be? Would they be professional sailors or a selection of people from Bristol like Merchants? How long would it take them to get there? What would Navigating be like (astrolabe?) ? How would the navigator be trained? Would they sleep on the deck or on beds or hay? What would they eat? Did they have a doctor?
Sadly there is relatively little know about Cabot's ship and only a bit more about the man himself. The Matthew replica in Bristol is 24 metres long and depicts a relatively normal caravel. If you like to build ship models then Jeff Staudt has created some plans for the caravel, or rather a replica -> (http://modelshipbuilder.com/e107_images/custom/The%20Matthew%20Plans-3-16-scale.pdf) They are, in many ways, speculative but given the nature of 15. century ship reconstructions this is entirely unsuprising :)
According to Ewan Jones the ship had a crew of 20. The ship certainly had no wheel but a tiller. The shipwheel was only becomming commonplace in the early 18. century (or even early/mid 18. century, France took a bit longer than Britain to adopt it). The replica has 3 masts which should translate to 5 sails (fore, sprit, mizzen, top and mainsail), unless it was lateen rigged which is unlikely for atlantic travel.
Evan Jones: The Matthew of Bristol and the Financiers of John Cabot's 1497 Voyage to North America