Most European countries sent out may ships for exploration such as Spain, Portuguese, Italy, France, and England. The most successful country for exploration on ship would probably be Spain for their huge discovery of the New World that was accidental trying to find a new trade route to India.Which made sense since southern Europe was the busiest in exploration ships. Now most exploration would either have to success or fail, when a ship was attacked or lost in sea it would be a failure and the country who sponsored the ship would lose a lot of money. If the exploration was a success and they found a different land to conquer or no mans land then they would not directly receive money but gain wealth over time economically helping the country. Their purpose to sending ships was to gain land when for explorations which lead to wealth. Back then the world was a stranger to them and finding more land was like a new science and meeting other cultures was valued highly. New discoveries caused almost jelousy throughout different countries making them follow the country who made the new discovery trying to win their discovery or beating it. The countries who were discovered found them strange and either welcomed them or threw them out which ended in war which eventually lead to the foreigners winning.
In my opinion the three most important explorers of the Age of Exploration would have to be Christopher Columbas and Italian Spanish explorer who discovered the new world by accident and opened the door for a whole new world of possibilities. The second explorer would have to be Marco Polo who made huge discoveries and retrieved a lot of new information from Asia and China, he was Italian. The third explorer would be Vasco Da Gama whom found new trade routes to the east, he made a huge impact by making transporting a lot faster.