A boat is a watercraft A watercraft is a vehicle, vessel or craft designed to move across or through water. The name is derived from the term "craft" which was used to describe all types of water going vessels. The term craft has since been expanded to include all types of vessels which travel on water , in air (aircraft) and in space (spacecraft) of modest size designed to float or plane Planing describes the state in which the hull of a waterborne craft is lifting up higher up to the point where it merely skims across the water, rather than moving through it. It describes a craft which is predominantly supported by hydrodynamic lift, rather than hydrostatic lift . This happens due to the relative motion of the passing water, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland (lakes A lake is a terrain feature , a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin (another type of landform or terrain feature; that is not global). Another definition is a body of fresh or salt water of considerable size that is surrounded by land. On Earth a body of water is considered a lake when it is inland,) or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat 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. It was originally developed for whaling, and later became popular for work along beaches, since it does not need to be turned around for beaching or refloating were designed to be operated from a ship A ship ( Audio (help·info)) is a large vessel that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. In traditional terms, ships were considered to be vessels which had at least one continuous water-tight deck extending from bow to stern. However, some modern designs for ships, and boats, in an offshore environment. In naval A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It includes anything conducted by surface ships, amphibious ships, submarines, and seaborne aviation, as well as ancillary support, communications, training, and terms, a boat is something small enough to be carried aboard another vessel (a ship). Strictly speaking and uniquely a submarine A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability. The term submarine most commonly refers to large crewed autonomous vessels; however, historically or more casually, submarine can also refer to medium sized or smaller vessels , is a boat as defined by the Royal Navy The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of HM Armed Forces . From the beginning of the 18th century until well into the 20th century it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s. In World War II the Royal Navy operated almost. Some boats too large for the naval definition include the Great Lakes freighter Lake freighters, or Lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes. The most well-known was the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the latest major vessel to be wrecked on the Lakes. These vessels are traditionally called boats, even though they classify as ships. In the mid-20th century, 300 lakers worked the Lakes but by the early 21st century,, riverboat A riverboat is a ship designed for inland navigation. These vessels are usually less sturdy than ships built for the open seas, with limited navigational and rescue equipment, as they do not have to survive the high winds or large waves characteristic on large lakes, seas or oceans. They can therefore be built from steel as well as from composite, narrowboat A narrowboat or narrow boat is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of England and Wales and ferryboat A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry (or ferry) primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi.

History

Boats have served as short distance transportation since early times.^[1] Circumstantial evidence, such as the early settlement of Australia Early human migrations began when Homo erectus first migrated out of Africa over the Levantine corridor and Horn of Africa to Eurasia about 1.8 million years ago, a migration probably sparked by the development of language. The expansion of H. erectus out of Africa was followed by that of Homo antecessor into Europe around 800,000 years ago, over 40,000 years ago, suggests that boats have been used since very ancient times. The earliest boats have been predicted^[2] to be logboats A dugout or dugout canoe is a boat which is basically a hollowed tree trunk. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon (pl: monoxyla) is Greek -- mono- (single) + ξύλον xylon (tree) -- and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In Germany they are called Einbaum (English translation: One tree). Some, but not all,. The oldest boats to be found by archaeological excavation are logboats from around 7,000-10,000 years ago. 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 is a species of pine native to Europe and Asia, ranging from Ireland, Great Britain and Portugal in the west, east to eastern Siberia, south to the Caucasus Mountains, and as far north as Lapland. In the north of its range, it occurs from sea level to 1,000 m, while in the south of its range, it is a high altitude mountain tree,. According to C14 dating analysis it was constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 B.C. This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands;^{[3] [4]} other very old dugout boats have been recovered.^{[5] [6] [7] [8]} A 7,000 year-old seagoing boat made from reeds and tar has been found in Kuwait The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab emirate situated in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south and Iraq to the north and lies on the northwestern shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the Arabic "akwat", the plural of "kout", meaning fortress.^[9]

Boats were used between 4000BCE-3000BCE in Sumer Sumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq. It is the earliest known civilization in the world and is known as the Cradle of Civilization. The Sumerian civilization spanned over 3000 years and began with the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period (mid 6th millennium BC) through the Uruk period (4th,^[1] ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history^[10] and in the Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian subcontinent; on the west by East Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean . It is the only ocean to be named.^[1]

Boats played a very important part in the commerce between the Indus Valley Civilization The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) which was centred mostly in the western part of the Indian Subcontinent and which flourished around the Indus river basin.[n 1] Primarily centered along the Indus and the Punjab region, the civilization extended into the Ghaggar-Hakra River and Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and southwestern Iran.^[11] Evidence of varying models of boats has also been discovered in various Indus Valley sites.^[12]

The accounts of historians Herodotus Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC). He was born in Caria, Halicarnassus (modern day Bodrum, Turkey). He is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture. He was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain, Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an, and Strabo Strabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher suggest that boats were being used for commerce and traveling.^[12]

Types

Boats can be categorized into three types:

• unpowered or human-powered boats (Unpowered boats include rafts A raft is any flat structure for support or transportation over water. It is the most basic of boat design, characterized by the absence of a hull. Although there are cross-over boat types that blur this definition, rafts are usually kept afloat by using any combination of buoyant materials such as wood, sealed barrels, or inflated air chambers and floats meant for one-way downstream travel. Human-powered boats include canoes A canoe or Canadian canoe (British English) is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes usually are pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over (i.e. covered, similar to a kayak), kayaks A kayak is a small human-powered boat that traditionally has a covered deck, and one or more cockpits, each seating one paddler who strokes a double-bladed paddle. The cockpit is covered by a spraydeck that keeps the inside of the boat (and the paddler's lower body) dry. The spraydeck or similar waterproof covering attaches securely to the edges, gondolas The gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian Lagoon. For centuries gondolas were once the chief means of transportation and most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times the iconic boats still have a role in public transport in the city, serving as traghetti over the Grand and boats propelled by poles like a punt A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, designed for use in small rivers or other shallow water. Punting refers to boating in a punt. The punter generally propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole. A punt should not be confused with a gondola, which is propelled by an oar rather than a pole.)
• sailing boats Sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a specific rig of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant. In popular usage "ship" became associated with all large sailing vessels and when steam power came along the (Sailing boats are boats which are propelled solely by means of sails A sail is any type of surface intended to generate thrust by being placed in a wind—in essence a vertically-oriented wing. Sails are used in sailing.)
• motorboats A motorboat is a boat which is powered by an engine. Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the internal combustion engine, the gearbox and the propeller in one portable unit (Motorboats are boats which are propelled by mechanical means, such as engines.)

Parts and terminology

Several key components make up the main structure of most boats. The hull A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline is the main structural component of the boat which actually provides buoyancy for the boat. The roughly horizontal, but chambered 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, if any at all. Above the deck are the superstructures A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied both to physical structures like buildings, bridges or ships and to conceptual structures as well . The word superstructure is a combination of the word super (Latin for above, in addition) with the word structure (also from Latin, meaning to. 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: 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 In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event. Only the ship's launching is considered more is a lengthwise structural member to which the frames are fixed (sometimes referred to as a backbone).

The front (or forward end) of a boat is called the bow. Boats of earlier times often featured a figurehead Although earlier ships had often had some form of bow ornamentation , the general practice was introduced with the galleons of the 16th century, as the figurehead as such could not come to be until ships had an actual head structure on which to place it protruding from the front of the bows. 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.

Building materials

Until the mid 19th century most boats were of all 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 A kayak is a small human-powered boat that traditionally has a covered deck, and one or more cockpits, each seating one paddler who strokes a double-bladed paddle. The cockpit is covered by a spraydeck that keeps the inside of the boat (and the paddler's lower body) dry. The spraydeck or similar waterproof covering attaches securely to the edges and coracle The coracle is a small, lightweight boat of the sort traditionally used in Wales but also in parts of Western and South Western England, Ireland , and Scotland (particularly the River Spey); the word is also used of similar boats found in India, Vietnam, Iraq and Tibet. The word "coracle" comes from the Welsh cwrwgl, cognate with Irish and the dugout canoe A dugout or dugout canoe is a boat which is basically a hollowed tree trunk. Other names for this type of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon (pl: monoxyla) is Greek -- mono- (single) + ξύλον xylon (tree) -- and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In Germany they are called Einbaum (English translation: One tree). Some, but not all, made from a single log. 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. 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 In gardening, a trowel is a tool with a pointed, scoop-shaped metal blade and a handle. It is used for breaking up earth, digging small holes, especially for planting and weeding, mixing in fertilizer or other additives, and transferring plants to pots) 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. As the forests of Britain and Europe continued to be over-harvested to supply the keels of larger wooden boats, and the Bessemer process The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly. The process had also been used outside of Europe for (patented A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state (national government) to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention in 1855) cheapened the cost of steel, steel ships and boats began to be more common. 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 aluminium gained popularity. Though much more expensive than steel, there are now aluminium alloys available that will not corrode in salt water, and an aluminium boat built to similar load carrying standards could be built lighter than steel.

Around the mid 1960s, boats made out 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.

Fibreglass 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. 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 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 fibre, 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^[13], 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 fibreglass. 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 materials such as foam or plastic, but most homebuilts today are built of plywood and either painted or covered in a layer of fibreglass and resin.

Propulsion

The most common means are:

• human power (rowing, paddling, setting pole etc.)
• 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
    • electric
  • paddle wheel
  • Water Jet (Personal water craft, Jetboat)
  • Air Fans (Hovercraft, Air boat)

Track-driven propulsion

An early uncommon means of boat propulsion was referred to as the water caterpillar which is similar in construction to paddles on a conveyor belt and preceded the development of tracked vehicles such as military tanks and earth moving equipment. A series of paddles on chains moved along the bottom of the boat to propel it over the water.^[14]

The first water caterpillar was developed by Desblancs in 1782 and propelled by a steam engine. In the United States the first water caterpillar was patented in 1839 by William Leavenworth of New York.

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.

See also

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Denemark 2000, page 208
2. ^ McGrail, Sean (2001). Boats of the World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 11. ISBN 0-19-814468-7.
3. ^ Van der Heide, G.D. (1974). Scheepsarcheologie in Nederland (Archeology of Ships in the Netherlands).. Naarden, Netherlands: Strengholt. pp. 507.
4. ^ "Worlds oldest boat". http://www.drentsmuseum.nl/index.cfm?sid=52. Retrieved 2010-03-14.
5. ^ "Oldest Boat Unearthed". China.org.cn. http://lanzhou.china.com.cn/english/travel/50131.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
6. ^ McGrail, Sean (2001). Boats of the World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 431. ISBN 0-19-814468-7.
7. ^ "Africa's Oldest Known Boat". wysinger.homestead.com. http://wysinger.homestead.com/canoe.html. Retrieved 2008-08-17.
8. ^ "8,000-year-old dug out canoe on show in Italy". http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/001511.html. Retrieved 2008-08-17.
9. ^ Lawler, Andrew (June 7, 2002). "Report of Oldest Boat Hints at Early Trade Routes". Science (AAAS) 296 (5574): 1791–1792. doi:10.1126/science.296.5574.1791. PMID 12052936. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/296/5574/1791. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
10. ^ McGrail, Sean (2001). Boats of the World. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN 0-19-814468-7.
11. ^ McGrail 2004, page 251
12. ^ ^{a b} McGrail 2004, pages 50-51
13. ^ Are They Fiberglass Boats Anymore? by David Pascoe, Marine Surveyor
14. ^ The Caterpillar Is Now Being Applied to Ships, Popular Science monthly, December 1918, page 68, Scanned by Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=EikDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA68

References

• Denemark, Robert Allen; el al. (2000). World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change. Routledge :3 . ISBN 0415232767.
• McGrail, Sean (2004). Boats of the World: From the Stone Age to Medieval Times :3. USA: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199271860.

External links

• Sailboats database: sailboat data sheets all over the world
• University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections -- - images of boats and vessels

Categories: Boats | Nautical terms | Water transport

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