Original column What’s the difference between a boat and a ship? - The Straight Dope
I’ve always heard Cecil’s answer as the correct one but I recently thought up a new one that may work even better. A boat is a vessel that operates out of one maybe two ports whereas a ship operates out of many ports. This explains why a submarine is a boat as well as large ocean going fishing boats.
Exactly how does a naval submarine differ from a battleship in this regard?
A battleship will go to all sorts of ports for the purpose of resupply/show of force/ shore leave etc. a submarine goes under the water and then 6 months later comes right back to where it started without ever going to any other ports.
When I was in the Coast Guard, boats were less than 100’ long and ships were more than 100’ long. The CG didn’t have any 100 footers then, so they dodged that bullet.
I was once told, in the event of an emergency, that ships have lifeboats, while boats have life vests. I was on a Malay Navy vessel at the time, and kept calling the ship a boat, and being continuously corrected, until I got the hang of it.
What is the definition of a lifeboat? Is a dinghy a lifeboat? Is a tender a lifeboat?
There are boaters at my marina who have tenders and davits on yachts that are 70 feet and smaller. I have a 6 ft dinghy on my 36 foot boat.
I don’t think whether a vessel carries a watercraft designated as a liferaft qualifies it as a ship. I certainly wouldn’t call my boat a ship.
That would put each of Columbus’ ships into the boat category and the mayflower would just squeeze into the ship category at an estimated 100 - 110 feet.
Also only one of the three ships involved in the founding of Jamestown would qualify as a ship using the 100 foot rule.
Boomers maybe, but I have a collection of goodies from mrAru from Toulon France, Rota Spain, La Maddalena Sardinia, Brest France, Holy Loch Scotland, Bremmerhaven Germany and Tromso Norway. Well, also a spiffy sample of arctic water from some unnamed place north of the arctic circle and south of the north pole. I think my favorite was a pair of Sami boots like these from Tromso, or maybe the stein from Bremmerhaven.
Most large cargo ships, which are unequivocally ships, spend their lives going back and forth between the same two ports (usually in different countries). Long ago, I used to work for HM Customs and Excise Statistical Office, and one one of my jobs was to maintain a database (a card index - this was long before the dawn of the PC) of all sailings of ships carrying goods for export from British ports. After working on this for a while, if you asked me which port a certain ship had sailed from (the database was kept for this purpose) I could very often tell you the answer without even looking at the cards. Nearly every ship nearly always used the same port every time, and I have little reason to doubt that it was the same at the other end of its voyage. (Indeed, it was often even more regular than that. For instance, I would have told you with some confidence that if a ship was called something-or-other Maru, then not only was it a Japanese ship bound for Japan, but that, at the British end, it always sailed out of Southampton.)
A better alternate definition: ships are generally self-sufficient enough to cross oceans; boats are short-legged, so to speak.
Submarines being “boats” is traditional from back in the early days (say, before 1943) when they were mostly for coastal patrol, and also because submariners are weird.
And because early submarines were boat-sized, and because they were conceived of as a new kind of torpedo boat.
Big = ship
Small = boat
Lots of exceptions, e.g. 1000 foot long freighters on the great lakes called boats.
According to my high school Naval Science class instructor (a retired Navy Master Chief), the US Navy designates a “boat” as a vessel that can be stowed aboard a “ship”. The primary exception was for submarines, which are always called boats, for no particular reason that he knew, just a convention.
To second aruvqan, this is untrue. Attack submarines routinely conduct port visits in foreign ports.
Yes, that is the traditional origin of it.
Well, having a ship on a lake would just be silly, wouldn’t it?
I once argued a case where an important issue was whether or not a particular craft was or was not a “ship”.
We did point out to the judge that according to the OED to be a “ship” the craft really needed a bowsprit and three masts. We had our tongue firmly in cheek at the time.
The difference is actually quite simple: any craft with two or more decks above the water is a ship.
Technically a sub would be a ship but it’s only a boat by convention.
That’s the Royal Navy definition anyway.
It may be a Royal Navy definition but it’s stuff all use anywhere else. What’s the definition of a “deck”? Does it have to extend the full - or most of - the length of a ship to be a “deck” for the purpose of your definition? If so then most bulk carriers (that dwarf 90% of naval vessels) are not ships. If not, then I know small trawlers that would be “ships” by your definition.
Hm, having spent time in 2 different common models of US subs [Sturgeon class and Los Angeles class] they don’t sit high enough in the water to have 2 decks above sea level - at best you have the inner and outer hulls and the top half of the top deck. Your basic fast attack hull, in a very nice cut away. Here is a fast attack coming into port [not sure which one it is, I cant see the hull number and don’t recognize it from the superstructure.] As you can see, there isn’t much hull above water. Though yes they could empty the ballast out and float higher, not sure exactly how high they can float with any stability in anything but mirror flat waters. They do ride higher moored at the pier, here you could have perhaps a deck and a half above the water line.
ooh, I like these kits, 2 sub classes mrAru served upon - he was on the San Juan and on a sturgeon class. I have to admit, I liked doing dependent cruises on the San Juan, it had a bit more elbow room on the mess decks.
