There was an interesting NPR episode about why these shipwrecks were so common. [1]
Spoiler "In fact, when our economists ran the numbers, this was the best predictor of a shipwreck. This was the culprit - leaving too late and running into monsoon season. And look, this was different than the other kinds of weather stuff they had checked."
Essentially, there was a hard limit on the number of ships that could sail. That resulted in getting goods onto the boat being HIGHLY competitive. The theory is that captains accepting bribes would overload their boats and leave too late which was a disaster.
To me the biggest culprit seemed to be the artificial scarcity introduced on the trade route to protect local businesses. This created an enormous incentive for the captain to cheat even though it made the trip far more dangerous.
One would think there would be a strong smuggling economy happening given the situation, but I guess ocean going vessels that could make the trip were rare enough to be accounted for by the governments. One could imagine as ships got bigger and transatlantic capable vessels became more commonplace people would be talking about how the new ships are so much better and hardly ever sink due to their improved technology, when it's really just that more ships make the journey so there is enough capacity that captains aren't incentivized to take outrageous risks with every trip, and in fact have a strong incentive to play it safe since they will need to make multiple trips if they want to retire.
Article said a voyage could take four months. I suspect only a huge government financed vessel was capable of making the duration with appreciable cargo. Which is going to severely curtail opportunities for smuggling.
Where does it say that? I searched & came up empty.
Oddly enough, I'm just now reading 1493 and there's a very extensive section on China and the effect of Spanish silver on the economy. Smuggling was very common as the emperors tried ineffectually to control it.
On the other side, Chinese silk proved devastating to European clothing makers, despite requiring TWO ocean voyages. Manila was the exchange point.
(Apparently this ship was headed to/from Vietnam, though?)
MALONE: Now, in Mexico, the ship would get loaded up with silver and then sail to Manila. It took about four months. And actually, this part of the route - no unusual shipwrecking problems.
CHILDS: Totally fine. The problem was the other direction - the return trip. Ships going from the Philippines back to Mexico were four times more likely to not make it.
Enormous quantities of archaeological finds remain out there. Humans have been behaviorally modern for 50,000-200,000 years. Most of the evidence of their lives is probably buried in soft mud seabed within a couple of kilometers of the current coastline.
I remember years ago playing with MAME and there are lots of old or unreleased builds people have resurrected, like special builds of pacman or whatever. :)
Spoiler "In fact, when our economists ran the numbers, this was the best predictor of a shipwreck. This was the culprit - leaving too late and running into monsoon season. And look, this was different than the other kinds of weather stuff they had checked."
Essentially, there was a hard limit on the number of ships that could sail. That resulted in getting goods onto the boat being HIGHLY competitive. The theory is that captains accepting bribes would overload their boats and leave too late which was a disaster.
[1] https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197956371