Europe did not go to sea because it was strong. It went because it was poor, peripheral, and had just assembled — mostly from borrowed technologies — the ability to make an ocean voyage a round trip. Pick a destination, then switch pieces of the kit on and off. Watch which gate fails, and why.
1 · Choose the voyage
Three different problems. The same ocean.
2 · Outfit it
Note where almost all of this came from. Europe integrated these tools; it invented very few of them.