All About Boats,
Parts & Accessories
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Some boats too large for the Naval definition include the Great Lakes
freighter, riverboat, narrow boat and ferryboat. However, these examples
generally do operate on inland and protected coastal waters. Modern
submarines can also be called boats, despite their underwater capabilities
and size. 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.
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, but a boat is unlikely
to have more than one. 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 underside of a deck is the deck head.
The keel is a lengthwise
structural member to which the frames are fixed (sometimes referred
to as a backbone). The vertical surfaces dividing the internal space
are bulkheads. The front of a boat is called the bow or prow. The rear
of the boat is called the stern. The right side is starboard and the
left side is port. On old time boats, a Figurehead sits on the front
of the bow.
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 state, USA.
In this race, very large, hollowed out pumpkin shells are used for boats,
powered by canoe paddles.
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