# boats and ships **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 28, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boats-and-ships/664755 "2013-07-28T21:47:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boats-and-ships/664755/21 "2013-08-06T17:13:18Z")
i recall documentaries where USN people refer to an aircraft carrier they are on as a boat. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boats-and-ships/664755/22 "2013-08-06T17:45:52Z")
> [@Gunslinger](#): > > Well, having a ship on a lake would just be silly, wouldn’t it? I assume you’re being tongue-in-cheek. If not, you’ve clearly never seen the Great Lakes. “Lake” is a bit of a misnomer. It would be more descriptive to call them fresh-water inland seas. There are plenty of ships, and shipwrecks, on the Great Lakes. Considerably more shipwrecks than the Bermuda Triangle. Google “Ships of the Great Lakes” for more info. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boats-and-ships/664755/23 "2013-08-06T18:57:25Z")
A relatively high volume of traffic and lots of land to bump into makes for a lot of shipwrecks. The smallest of the Great Lakes, Erie has the most shipwrecks. The largest (unless you count Michigan and Huron as one lake, which really they are), Superior, is truly an inland sea, roughly 350 miles by 160 miles, with some impressive storms on it, particularly in the late fall and early winter. For example, a mid-sized freighter (650 foot Algoway) that I was working on took waves across the deck, and a few years prior to that another mid-sized freighter (730 foot Edmund Fitzgerald) sank in a storm (possibly from a cargo hatch being blown by the waves, possibly from a shoaling further up lake, possibly structural failure in the pounding . . . ). In a decent blow it is common to have waves thirty to forty feet high and winds of fifty to seventy miles per hour. ---
**Author:** ![piston\_broke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/278dde/32.png) [@piston\_broke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/piston_broke)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boats-and-ships/664755/24 "2013-08-07T11:12:27Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > 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? No. As an example I offer Peter Griffin’s misunderstanding of poop deck. > [@Princhester](#): > > If not, then I know small trawlers that would be “ships” by your definition. They must be ships then.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boats-and-ships/664755/25 "2013-08-19T17:31:59Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > 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. Another exception to the “rule”: [http://www.maritimequest.com/warship\_directory/us\_navy\_pages/destroyers/photos/cole\_ddg\_67/05\_ddg67.JPG](http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/us_navy_pages/destroyers/photos/cole_ddg_67/05_ddg67.JPG) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boats-and-ships/664755.md?page=1)