A wooden boat operating near shore.

This seagoing boat in the Dover museum is believed to be at least 3000 years old

A boat is a watercraft designed to float or plane on water, and provide transport over it. A watercraft is a Vehicle, vessel or craft designed to move across (or through Water, including saltwater and freshwater for pleasure recreation physical Usually this water will be inland (lakes) or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. A whaleboat is a type of open Boat that is relatively narrow and pointed at both ends enabling it to move either forwards or backwards equally well A ship /ʃɪp/ is a large vessel that floats on water Ships are generally distinguished from Boats based on size In naval terms, a boat is something small enough to be carried aboard another vessel (a ship). A ship /ʃɪp/ is a large vessel that floats on water Ships are generally distinguished from Boats based on size Some boats too large for the naval definition include the Great Lakes freighter, riverboat, narrowboat and ferryboat. Lake freighters, or Lakers, are Cargo vessels that ply the Great Lakes. A riverboat is Ship designed for Inland navigation. These vessels are usually less sturdy than ships built for the open seas with limited navigational and A narrowboat or narrow boat is a Boat of a distinctive design made to fit the narrow Canals of England and Wales. See also Merchant ship A ferry is a form of transport usually a Boat or Ship, used to carry (or ferry) passengers and Modern submarines can also be called boats, despite their underwater capabilities and size. A submarine is a Watercraft that can operate independently below water as distinct from a Submersible that has only limited underwater capability This may be because the first submarines could be carried by a ship and were not capable of making independent offshore passages. Boats may be used by the military or other government interests, or for research or commercial purposes; but regardless of size, a vessel in private, non-commercial usage is almost certainly a boat.

History

A boat in an Egyptian tomb painting from about 1450 BCE

The oldest recovered boat in the world is the canoe of Pesse; it is a dugout or hollowed tree trunk from a Pinus sylvestris. The Scots Pine ( Pinus sylvestris L family Pinaceae) is a species of Pine native to Europe and Asia, ranging from According to C14 dating analysis it has been constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 B. C. This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands.

Boats have served as a method for short distance transportation since early times, on slow rivers and calm seas. ^[1] Circumstantial evidence, such as the early settlement of Australia over 40,000 years ago, suggests that boats have been used since very ancient times. Evolution of the genus ''Homo'' took place in Africa First Homo erectus migrated out of Africa across Eurasia beginning about 2 million years ago The earliest boats have been predicted^[2] to be logboats, or possibly boats made from hide or tree bark. A dugout is a Boat which is basically a hollowed tree trunk Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Bark, also known as periderm is the outermost layer of stems and Roots of Woody plants such as Trees It overlays the Wood and consists The oldest boats to be found by archaeological excavation are logboats from around 7000-9,000 years ago,^{[3] [4]} though a 7000 year-old seagoing boat made from reeds and tar has been found in Kuwait. ^[5]

Being more capacious than carts and wagons, and suitable for both slow rivers and calm seas, boats were used between 4000BCE-3000BCE in Sumer,^[1] Ancient Egypt ^[6] and in the Indian Ocean. Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar Ancient Egypt was an Ancient Civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's Oceanic divisions covering about 20% of the water on the Earth 's surface ^[1]

Boats played an important part in the commerce between the civilizations of Indus Valley and Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley Civilization (Mature period 2600&ndash1900 BCE abbreviated IVC, was an ancient Civilization that flourished in the Indus River basin Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding ^[7] Evidence of varying models of boats has also been discovered in various Indus Valley sites. ^[8]

The accounts of Historians Herodotus, Pliny the elder and Strabo, suggest that boats were being used for commerce and traveling. Herodotus of Halicarnassus ( Greek: Hēródotos Halikarnāsseús) was a Greek Historian who lived in the 5th century BC ( 484 BC&ndash Gaius or Caius Plinius Secundus, ( AD 23 – August 25, AD 79 better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient Author Strabo ( Greek: Στράβων 63/64 BC – ca AD 24 was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher. ^[8]

Types

Main article: List of Boat Types

A passenger boat to the islands off the coast of the Sai Kung Peninsula of Hong Kong. Types of boat are Airboat Ambulance Banana boat Bangca Bareboat charter A water taxi or water bus is a Boat used to provide Public transport, usually but not always in an urban environment Sai Kung Peninsula ( is a Peninsula in the easternmost part of the New Territories in Hong Kong. Hong Kong ( officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located on China 's south coast on the Pearl River Delta, and borders

A sailboat (racing dinghy) and barge share the Mississippi River, USA. In some cases less is more The purpose of this article is to give an overview See also Dinghy sailing Dinghy racing is the competitive Sport of sailing dinghies. BARGE, the Big August RecGambling Excursion is a yearly convention held in Las Vegas during the first weekend of August The Mississippi River is the second longest River in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to

A Tug boat, used for towing or pushing other, larger, vessels. TUGboat (ISSN 0896-3207 is a journal published three times per year by the TeX Users Group. A ship /ʃɪp/ is a large vessel that floats on water Ships are generally distinguished from Boats based on size

Unusual boats have been used for sports purposes - for example, in "big bathtub races" which use boats made from bathtubs. Pumpkins have been used as boats as in the annual Pumpkin Boat Race on Lake Otsego in New York, United States. Otsego Lake is a small Lake located in Otsego County New York in the USA and is the source of the Susquehanna River.

Parts and terminology

Common to most boats are several key components which make up the main structure of the boat. The hull is the main structural component of the boat which provides buoyancy for the boat. A hull is the body of a Ship or Boat. It is a central concept in floating vessels as it provides the Buoyancy that keeps the vessel from sinking The roughly horizontal, but cambered structures spanning the hull of the boat are referred to as the deck. In a ship there are often several decks, but a boat is unlikely to have more than one. Above the deck are the superstructures. A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline The underside of a deck is the deck head.

An enclosed space on a boat is referred to as a cabin. Several individual structures make up a cabin: the similar but usually lighter structure which spans a raised cabin is a coach-roof. The "floor" of a cabin is properly known as the sole, but is more likely to be called the floor (a floor is properly, a structural member which ties a frame to the keelson and keel). The vertical surfaces dividing the internal space are bulkheads.

The keel is a lengthwise structural member to which the frames are fixed (sometimes referred to as a backbone).

The front of a boat is called the bow or prow. Boats of earlier eras often featured a figurehead protruding from the front of the bows. A figurehead is a carved wooden decoration often female or bestial found at the Prow of Ships of the 16th to the 19th century The rear of the boat is called the stern. The right side is starboard and the left side is port.

Building materials

See also: Boat building

A ship's lifeboat, built of steel, rusting away in the wetlands of Folly Island, South Carolina, United States. Boat building, one of the oldest branches of Engineering, is concerned with constructing the hulls of boats and for Sailboats the masts A lifeboat is a small craft carried on a ship to provide a means of emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard the ship South Carolina ( is a state in the southern region ( Deep South) of the United States of America. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the

Until the mid 19th century most boats were of all natural materials; primarily wood. Many boats had been built with iron or steel frames but still planked in wood. In 1855 ferro-cement boat construction was patented by yothe French. They called it Ferciment. This is a system by which a steel or iron wire framework is built in the shape of a boat's hull and covered (troweled) over with cement. A trowel is one of several similar Hand tools used for digging smoothing or otherwise moving around small amounts of viscous or particulate material Reinforced with bulkheads and other internal structure it is strong but heavy, easily repaired, and, if sealed properly, will not leak or corrode. These materials and methods were copied all over the world, and have faded in and out of popularity to the present. As the forests of Britain and Europe continued to be over-harvested to supply the keels of larger wooden boats, and the Bessemer Process (patented in 1855) cheapened the cost of steel, steel ships and boats began to be more common. The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive Industrial process for the mass-production of Steel from molten Pig iron. By the 1930s boats built of all steel from frames to plating were seen replacing wooden boats in many industrial uses, even the fishing fleets. Private recreational boats in steel are uncommon. In the mid 20th century aluminum gained popularity. Though much more expensive than steel, there are now aluminum alloys available that will not corrode in salt water, and an aluminum boat built to similar load carrying standards could be built lighter than steel. Nonetheless, boats are generally built in such a manner as to keep water from invading the hull, which would cause the boats to sink.

Around the mid 1960s, boats made out of glass-reinforced plastic, more commonly known as fiberglass, became popular, especially for recreational boats. Glass-reinforced plastic ( GRP) is a Composite material or Fiber-reinforced plastic made of a Plastic reinforced by fine fibers Fiberglass (also called fibreglass and glass fibre see Spelling differences) is material made from extremely fine Fibers of Glass. The coast guard refers to such boats as 'FRP' (for Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic) boats. Fiberglass boats are extremely strong, and do not rust (iron oxide), corrode, or rot. They are, however susceptible to structural degradation from sunlight and extremes in temperature over their lifespan. Fiberglass provides structural strength, especially when long woven strands are laid, sometimes from bow to stern, and then soaked in epoxy or polyester resin to form the hull of the boat. Whether hand laid or built in a mold, FRP boats usually have an outer coating of gelcoat which is a thin solid colored layer of polyester resin that adds no structural strength, but does create a smooth surface which can be buffed to a high shine and also acts as a protective layer against sunlight. FRP structures can be made stiffer with sandwich panels, where the FRP encloses a lightweight core such as balsa or foam. Cored FRP is most often found in decking which helps keep down weight that will be carried above the waterline. The addition of wood makes the cored structure of the boat susceptible to rotting which puts a greater emphasis on not allowing damaged sandwich structures to go unrepaired. Plastic based foam cores are less vulnerable. The phrase 'advanced composites' in FRP construction may indicate the addition of carbon fiber, kevlar(tm) or other similar materials, but it may also indicate other methods designed to introduce less expensive and, by at least one yacht surveyor's eyewitness accounts [1], less structurally sound materials.

Cold molding is similar to FRP in as much as it involves the use of epoxy or polyester resins, but the structural component is wood instead of fiberglass. In cold molding very thin strips of wood are laid over a form or mold in layers. This layer is then coated with resin and another directionally alternating layer is laid on top. In some processes the subsequent layers are stapled or otherwise mechanically fastened to the previous layers, but in other processes the layers are weighted or even vacuum bagged to hold layers together while the resin sets. Layers are built up thus to create the required thickness of hull.

People have even made their own boats or watercraft out of commonly available materials such as styrofoam or plastic, but most homebuilts today are built of plywood and either painted or covered in a layer of fiberglass and resin. Styrofoam is a trademark for polystyrene Thermal insulation, a material manufactured by Dow Chemical Company.

Propulsion

The most common means are:

• Human power (rowing, paddling, setting pole etc. A setting pole is a pole, handled by a single individual made to move Watercraft by pushing the craft in the desired direction )
• Wind power (sailing)
• Motor powered screws
  • Inboard
    • Internal Combustion (gasoline, diesel, heavy fuel oil)
    • Steam (Coal, fuel oil)
    • Nuclear (for submarines and large naval ships)
  • Inboard/Outboard
    • Gasoline
    • Diesel
  • Outboard
    • Gasoline
    • Electric
  • Paddle Wheel
  • Water Jet (Jet ski, Personal water craft, Jetboat)
  • Air Fans (Hovercraft, Air boat)

Severn class lifeboat in Poole Harbour, Dorset, England. A sail is any type of surface intended to generate Thrust by being placed in a Wind &mdashin essence a vertically-oriented Wing. A propeller is essentially a type of fan which transmits power by converting Rotational motion into Thrust for propulsion of a vehicle such as an An inboard motor is a marine propulsion system for Boats As opposed to an Outboard motor where an engine is mounted outside of the hull of the Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from Petroleum Distillation, either as a distillate or a residue The sterndrive, or stern drive is also called inboard/outboard (I/O and is a form of marine propulsion. Diesel or Diesel fuel (ˈdiːzəl in general is any Fuel used in Diesel engines The most common is a specific fractional distillate of petroleum An outboard motor is a propulsion system for smaller Boats General uses Outboard motors for a Boat are developed as a self-contained A paddle steamer is a ship or boat driven by a Steam engine that uses one or more Paddle wheels to develop thrust for propulsion. Jet Ski is the Brand name of Personal watercraft (PWC manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd A personal water craft ( PWC) is a Recreational Watercraft that the rider sits or stands on rather than inside A jetboat is a Boat propelled by a jet of water ejected from the back of the craft A hovercraft, or air-cushion vehicle (ACV is an Amphibious vehicle or craft, designed to travel over any sufficiently smooth surface supported by Airboats are essentially flat-bottomed vessels propelled in a forward direction by an aircraft-type Propeller and powered by either an aircraft or automotive Engine Gallery Poole Harbour is a large natural Harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores Dorset ( (or archaically, Dorsetshire) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland This is the largest class of UK lifeboat at 17 metres long

Buoyancy

See also: Buoyancy

A boat stays afloat because its weight is equal to that of the water it displaces. A lifeboat is a boat designed to save the lives of people in trouble at sea In Physics, buoyancy ( BrE IPA: /ˈbɔɪənsi/ is the upward Force on an object produced by the surrounding liquid or gas in which it is In Fluid mechanics, displacement occurs when an object is immersed in a Fluid, pushing it out of the way and taking its The material of the boat itself may be heavier than water (per volume), but it forms only the outer layer. Inside it is air, which is negligible in weight. But it does add to the volume. The central term here is density, which is mass ('weight') per volume. The density of a material is defined as its Mass per unit Volume: \rho = \frac{m}{V} Different materials usually have different Mass is a fundamental concept in Physics, roughly corresponding to the Intuitive idea of how much Matter there is in an object The volume of any solid plasma vacuum or theoretical object is how much three- Dimensional space it occupies often quantified numerically The mass of the boat (plus contents) as a whole has to be divided by the volume below the waterline. If the boat floats, then that is equal to the density of water (1 kg/l). To the water it is as if there is water there because the average density is the same. If weight is added to the boat, the volume below the waterline will have to increase too, to keep the mass/weight balance equal, so the boat sinks a little to compensate.

See also

• Cabin cruiser
• Glossary of nautical terms
• Naval architecture

Notes

References

• Denemark, Robert Allen; el al. (2000). World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change. Routledge. ISBN 0415232767.
• McGrail, Sean (2004). Boats of the World: From the Stone Age to Medieval Times. USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199271860.

External links

• WhatBoat? Boat Magazine
• Sailboats database: sailboat data sheets all over the world
• Hull Identification Numbers Explanation of International HIN formats
• University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections -- Freshwater and Marine Image Bank -- Vessels Images of boats and vessels.