Boat

A boat is a watercraft of a large range of sizes designed to float, plane, work or

travel on water. Small boats are typically found on inland waterways (e.g. rivers and
lakes) or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were
designed for operation as a ship in an offshore environment. In modern naval terms,
a boat is a vessel small enough to be carried aboard another vessel (a ship). An older
tradition is that a ship has a weather deck fully enclosing the hull space, while a boat
lacks a full weather deck; this is suggested as the reason why submarines are
referred to as 'boats' rather than 'ships', as a cylindrical hull has interior decks but no
weatherdeck. Another definition is a vessel that can be lifted out of the water. Some At 17 metres long, theSevern-class
definitions do not make a distinction in size, as bulk freighters 1,000 feet (300 m) lifeboats are the largest class of UK
long on the Great Lakes are called oreboats. Ships are generally distinguished from lifeboat.
boats based on their larger size, shape and cargo or passenger capacity.

Boats have a wide variety of shapes, sizes and construction methods due to their intended purpose, available materials or local
traditions. Canoe-type boats have been used since prehistoric times and various versions are used throughout the world for
transportation, fishing or sport. Fishing boats vary widely in style partly to match local conditions. Pleasure boats include ski boats,
pontoon boats, and sailboats. House boats may be used for vacationing or long-term housing. Small boats can provide transport or
convey cargo (lightering) to and from large ships. Lifeboats have rescue and safety functions. Boats can be powered by human power
(e.g. rowboats), wind power (e.g. sailboats) and motor power (e.g.propellor-driven motorboats driven bygasoline or diesel engines).

Contents
History
Types
Parts and terminology
Building materials
Propulsion
Buoyancy
Image gallery
See also
References
External links

History
Dugouts are the oldest type of boats found by archaeologists,[2] and boats have served as transportation since the earliest times.[3]
Circumstantial evidence, such as the early settlement of Australia over 40,000 years ago, findings in Crete dated 130,000 years
ago,[4] and findings in Flores dated to 900,000 years ago,[5] suggest that boats have been used since prehistoric times. The earliest
boats are thought to have been logboats,[6] and the oldest boats found by archaeological excavation date from around 7,000–10,000
years ago. The oldest recovered boat in the world is thePesse canoe, a dugout made from the hollowed tree trunk of aPinus sylvestris
and constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 BC. This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands.[7][8]
Other very old dugout boats have also been recovered.[9][10][11] Rafts have operated for at least 8,000 years.[12] A 7,000-year-old
[13]
seagoing reed boat has been found in Kuwait.[13] Boats were used between 4000 and
3000 BC in Sumer,[3] ancient Egypt[14] and in the Indian Ocean.[3]

Boats played an important role in the commerce between the Indus Valley
Civilization and Mesopotamia.[15] Evidence of varying models of boats has also
been discovered at various Indus Valley archaeological sites.[16][17] Uru craft
originate in Beypore, a village in south Calicut, Kerala, in southwestern India. This
type of mammoth wooden ship was constructed using teak, without any iron, and
had a transport capacity of 400 tonnes. The ancient Arabs and Greeks used such A Ukrainian dugout (dowbanka)
boats as trading vessels.[18] dating from the end of the 19th
century. Radomysl Castle, Ukraine[1]
The historians Herodotus, Pliny the Elder and Strabo record the use of boats for
commerce, travel, and military purposes.[16]

Types
Boats can be categorized into three main types:

1. Unpowered or human-powered boats. Unpowered boats includerafts

and floats meant for one-way downstream travel. Human-powered boats
include canoes, kayaks, gondolas and boats propelled by poles like a
punt.
2. Sailboats, which are propelled solely by means ofsails.
3. Motorboats, which are propelled by mechanical means, such as
engines.

Boats with sails in Bangladesh.

Parts and terminology
Several key components make up the main structure of most boats. The hull is the main structural component of the boat and
provides buoyancy. The gunnel, which make up the sides of the boat, offers protection from water and makes the boat harder to sink.
The roughly horizontal, chambered structures spanning the hull of the boat are referred to as the deck. A ship often has several decks,
but a boat is unlikely to have more than one, if any
. Above the deck are thesuperstructures. The underside of a deck is the deck head.

An enclosed space on a boat is referred to as a cabin. Several structures make up a cabin, including a coach-roof, which is a
lightweight structure which spans a raised cabin. 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 (or fore end) of a boat is called the bow. Boats of earlier times often featured a figurehead protruding from the bow. The
rear (or aft end) of the boat is called the stern. The right side (facing forward) is starboard and the left side is port.

Nearly every boat is given a name by the owner. This is how the boat is referred to in the boating community, and in some cases, in
[19]
legal or title paperwork. Boat names vary from whimsical to humorous to serious.

Building materials
Until the mid-19th century most boats were made of natural materials, primarily wood, although reed, bark and animal skins were
also used. Early boats include the bound-reed style of boat seen in Ancient Egypt, the birch bark canoe, the animal hide-covered
kayak and coracle and the dugout canoe made from a single log.

Bill Streever describes a boat made by the native Inupiat people in Barrow, Alaska as "a skin boat, an umiaq, built from the stitched
hides of bearded seals and used to hunt bowhead whales in the open-water leads during spring...".[20]
By the mid-19th century, many boats had been built with iron or steel frames but still
planked in wood. In 1855 ferro-cement boat construction was patented by the
French, who coined the name "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 (trowelled) over
with cement. 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 time. As the forests of Britain and Europe continued to be
over-harvested to supply the keels of larger wooden boats, and the Bessemer process Traditional Toba Batak boat (circa
(patented in 1855) cheapened the cost of steel, steel ships and boats began to be 1870), photograph by Kristen
more common. By the 1930s boats built entirely of steel from frames to plating were Feilberg
seen replacing wooden boats in many industrial uses, also for fishing fleets. Private
recreational boats of steel are however uncommon. In 1895 WH Mullins produced
steel boats of galvanized iron and by 1930 became the world's largest producer of
pleasure boats. Mullins also offered boats in aluminum from 1895 through 1899 and
once again in the 1920s[21] In the mid-20th century aluminium gained popularity.
Though much more expensive than steel, there are now aluminum alloys available
that do not corrode in salt water, and an aluminium boat built to similar load
carrying standards is lighter in weight than the steel equivalent . Around the mid-
1960s, boats made of glass-reinforced plastic, more commonly known as fibreglass,
became popular, especially for recreational boats. The United States Coast Guard
refers to such boats as 'FRP' (for fibre-reinforced plastic) boats. Fishing Boats in Visakhapatnam

Fibreglass boats are 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. Fibreglass 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. Whether hand laid or built in a mould, Fibre-reinforced plastic (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 fibre, Kevlar or other
similar materials, but it may also indicate methods designed to introduce less expensive and, by at least one yacht surveyor's
eyewitness accounts,[22] less structurally sound materials.

Cold moulding 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 fibreglass. In cold moulding very thin strips of wood are layered over a form or mould. Each layer is 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 them together while the
resin sets. Layers are built up until the required hull thickness is achieved.

Boats or watercraft have also been made of materials such as foam or plastic, but most homebuilts today are built of plywood and
either painted or covered with a layer of fibreglass and resin.

Propulsion
The most common means of boat propulsion are as follows:

Engine powered by the motorpropellers

Inboard
 Inboard/outboard (stern drive)
Outboard
Paddle wheel
Water jet (personal water craft, jetboat)
Air fans (hovercraft, air boat)
Human power (rowing, paddling, setting pole etc.)
Wind power (sailing)
An early, uncommon means of boat propulsion is represented by the water caterpillar. This boat was moved by a series of paddles on
tracked vehicles.[23]
chains along the bottom to propel it over the water and preceded the development of

Buoyancy
A floating boat displaces its weight in water. The material of the boat hull may be denser than water, but if this is the case then it
forms only the outer layer. If the boat floats, the mass of the boat (plus contents) as a whole divided by the volume below the
waterline is equal to the density of water (1 kg/l). If weight is added to the boat, the volume below the waterline will increase to keep
the weight balance equal, and so the boat sinks a little to compensate.

Image gallery

Plastic molded boat. Anchored boats in wooden boat in Morocco A boat in an Egyptian
Portovenere, Italy tomb, painted around
1450 BC

These dugout boats were A boat on the Ganges Babur crossing river Son; A tugboat is used for
photographed in the River folio from an illustrated towing or pushing
courtyard of the Old manuscript of ‘Babur- another, larger vessel
Military Hospital in the Namah’, Mughal, Akbar
Historic Center of Quito Period, AD 1598
Aluminum flat-bottomed A ship's derelict lifeboat, wooden boat In a small A wooden boat operating
boats ashore for storage built of steel, rusting Moroccan village near shore
away in the wetlands of
Folly Island, South
Carolina, United States

Ming Dynasty Chinese A boat shaped like a

painting of the Wanli sauce bottle that was
Emperor enjoying a boat sailed across the Atlantic
ride on a river with an Ocean by Tom McClean
entourage of guards and
courtiers

See also
Abora Launch (boat) Rescue craft
Barge Log canoe Sampan
Cabin cruiser Narrowboat Ship's boat
Dory Naval architecture Skiff
Fishing boat Panga (boat) Super yacht
Halkett boat Pirogue Traditional fishing boats
Inflatable boat Watercraft rowing

References
1. Bogomolets O. Radomysl Castle-Museum on the Royal Road iVa Regia. Kyiv, 2013 ISBN 978-617-7031-15-3
2. Roger Francis Bridgman (2006).1000 Inventions and Discoveries(https://books.google.com/books?id=zPlQAAAAC
AAJ). Dorling Kindersley Children's.ISBN 978-1-4053-1419-0.
3. Robert A. Denemark, ed. (2000).World system history: The social science of long-term change(1 ed.). London
[u.a.]: Routledge. p. 208.ISBN 0-415-23276-7.
4. "Plakias Survey Finds Mesolithic and Palaeolithic Artifacts on Crete"(http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/news/news
Details/plakias-survey-finds-stone-age-tools-on-crete/)
. www.ascsa.edu.gr. Retrieved 2011-10-28.
 5. First Mariners – Archaeology Magazine Archive(http://archive.archaeology.org/9805/newsbriefs/mariners.html).
Archive.archaeology.org. Retrieved on 2013-11-16.
6. McGrail, Sean (2001).Boats of the World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. 11.ISBN 0-19-814468-7.
7. Van der Heide, G.D. (1974).Scheepsarcheologie in Nederland (Archeology of Ships in the Netherlands)
. Naarden,
Netherlands: Strengholt. p. 507.
8. "World's oldest boat" (http://www.drentsmuseum.nl/collections/archaeology.html). Retrieved 2013-11-08.
9. "Oldest Boat Unearthed"(https://web.archive.org/web/20090102183359/http://lanzhou.china.com.cn/english/travel/5
0131.htm). China.org.cn. Archived fromthe original (http://lanzhou.china.com.cn/english/travel/50131.htm)on 2009-
01-02. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
10. McGrail, Sean (2001).Boats of the World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. 431.ISBN 0-19-814468-7.
11. "8,000-year-old dug out canoe on show in Italy"(http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/001511.html). Stone
Pages Archeo News. Retrieved 2008-08-17.
12. Pohjanpalo, Jorma (1970).The sea and man (https://books.google.com/books?id=l5YZAQAAIAAJ) . Translated by
Diana Tullberg. New York: Stein and Day. p. 25. ISBN 0812813030. Retrieved 2015-11-05. "The oldest raft
structures known are at least 8,000 years old.
"
13. Lawler, Andrew (June 7, 2002)."Report of Oldest Boat Hints at Early Trade Routes" (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/
content/summary/296/5574/1791). Science. AAAS. 296 (5574): 1791–1792. doi:10.1126/science.296.5574.1791(htt
ps://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.296.5574.1791) . PMID 12052936
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12052936). Retrieved 2008-05-05.
14. McGrail, Sean (2001).Boats of the World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 17–18.ISBN 0-19-814468-7.
15. McGrail, Seán (2004).Boats of the world: From the Stone Age to medieval times(Paperback ed.). Oxford: Oxford
University Press. p. 251.ISBN 0-19-927186-0.
16. McGrail, Seán (2004).Boats of the world : From the Stone Age to medieval times(Paperback ed.). Oxford: Oxford
University Press. pp. 50–51.ISBN 0-19-927186-0.
17. "Beypore History – The Dhows of Beypore"(http://historicalleys.blogspot.com/2009/02/dhows-of-beypore.html)
.
historicalleys.blogspot.com. 6 February 2009.
18. https://books.google.com/books?
id=y_C1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT9&lpg=PT9&dq=The+ancient+Arabs+and+Greeks+used+such+boats+as+trading+vessels.&s
19. "The Boat Name Game"(http://www.popyachts.com/Page/Site-Post-List/119/The-Boat-Name-Game.html). Retrieved
2014-10-08.
20. Streever, Bill (2009). Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places
. New York: Little, Brown and Company. p. 154.
21. WH Mullins boat history, Salem Ohio
22. "Are They Fiberglass Boats Anymore? by David Pascoe, Marine Surveyor"
(http://www.yachtsurvey.com/Fiberglass_
Boats.htm). Yachtsurvey.com. 2000-01-12. Retrieved 2013-01-28.
23. Bonnier Corporation (December 1918).The Caterpillar Is Now Being Applied to Ships(https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=EikDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA68). Popular Science. Bonnier Corporation. p. 68.

External links
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Freshwater and Marine Image Bank, (enter search term
"vessels" for images of boats and vessels.)

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