The Manila galleon
The Manila galleon, which within a decade of the first tornaviaje, would be recognisable today as a shipping line. There were regularly scheduled sailings between Manila and Acapulco with specially-built cargo ships. For commercial and regulatory reasons – the number of sailings was soon restricted to just one each way per year – the ships grew to become among the largest ever constructed, reaching some 2000 tons, when most large ships were only a quarter of that size; they were the super-container ships of their day. By 1587, single cargoes could be worth as much as 2 million pesos.