Blessed by the deep waters of the Douro River, Porto was crucial in the 14th and 15th centuries in the development of Portuguese shipbuilding, and was the port from which in 1415 Henry the Navigator set sail to explore the western coast of Africa and initiating the Portuguese Age of Discovery. Under his command, the islands of Madeira and the Azores were reached in 1419 and 1427, respectively.During this time in the history of Porto, its people earned their nickname as ‘tripeiros’, or tripe-eaters, as the good cuts of meat were sent with the ships for sailors, leaving the people of Porto to eat whatever was left, such as tripe.By the 1700s, wine was already an important part of the economy and contributed enormously to the growth of Porto, with boats known as ‘barcos rebelos’ transporting barrels of wine down the Douro River from the vineyards of the Douro Valley. In 1703 the Methuen Treaty established trade relations between England and Portugal, and by 1717 the first English trading post for Port wine was already operating out of Porto