BOAT, a term now indiscriminately used for sea and river vessels of all kinds, but more properly applied to a vessel that can be hauled up on or launched from a beach. It may be propeled by oars, sails, steam or other motive power. From the earliest ages men have used buoyant contrivances to float them across streams and lakes. The primitive log or num ber of logs lashed together to form a raft, or bundles of brushwood or reeds used for the same purpose, early developed into the parent of modern boats, the dug-out, which has been found in association with Stone Age remains and in Swiss lake dwellings. Bark canoes and wickerwork frames covered with skins, such as the coracle of the ancient Celts, marks a further stage of development. There are differ ences in the ways of laying on the planks in the modern small boat, viz., the planks may be laid edge to edge so as to present a smooth exterior; the boat is then said to be carvel built; the planks may overlap, and the boat is described as clinker-built. Naturally the vari ous types of boats are countless in number, for they vary in every part of the world and in the same port for every different class of work and the character of the waters on which they are to sail. Some are needed swift, some roomy, some for pleasure, some for rough weather; the enumeration is endless. They are usually classed for racing purposes as open, half-decked and decked boats. The canoe, punt, skiff, gon dola, dingy and outrigger are used on smooth water for pleasure and racing. The boats used by watermen vary greatly, according to the locality. Whaleboats are sharp at both ends, and may be steered with an oar or ordinary rudder. Lifeboats are provided with air cham bers which render them self-righting or self bailing, or both combined. The following boats are used in the United States navy for rowing and sailing: barge, cutter, whaleboat, gig and dingy. Steamer and motor-boats are also used. The cutter type includes the dingies and launches and are square-sterned. Steamers resemble cutters in build, but are much heavier, are partly decked and some types have rounded or pointed sterns; motor boats are of various types. Gigs are of.
cutter build, but are longer, narrower and of less depth than the cutters. They are now little used. Dingies have four oars; cutters and whaleboats from 6 to 14; gigs about 6; and launches 12 to 16. Masts and sails are supplied to be used when occasion requires or offers. Internal combustion engines are fast coming into general use for the propulsion of all types and sizes of boats. Boats are single or double-banked, as they have one or two oars to a thwart. The seats for the crew of a boat are called thwarts, the strip on which they rest is called the rising, the space abaft the after thwart the stern sheets, that forward of the first thwart the fore sheets, the spaces for the oars the rowlocks and the rim or upper edge of the boat the gunwale. Race boats differ much in shape from other boats; having only speed in view, they are built as light, narrow and sharp as possible. They are rowed with from two to 12 oars, and are from 15 to 70 feet in length, and generally not more than eight inches above water. The two-oared boats are called shells, sculls or wherries; the larger ones sometimes barges. In modern war vessels the boats are rested amidships on chocks or skid frames, but on merchant and passenger steamships boats are carried at the davits. These are usually curved bars, the lower ends of which rest in a socket, with a collar around them higher up near the ship's rail. The upper blocks of the boat-falls are secured to the curved arm of the davit and the lower blocks are fitted to rings in the boat. Mechanical davits are now coming into use on the larger ocean steamships. Every sea-going ship is by law required to carry a specified number of boats, according to the tonnage. Sea-going ships carrying passengers must carry lifeboats and have sufficient boat accommodation for all the passengers carried. Owing to the impos sibility of stowing away these on a large ship collapsible boats of various types are in use, also rafts with a large number of buoys. See LIFEBOAT; ROWING; SHIP; YACHT.