Difference between boats and ships

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by StuM

If submarines are boats, not ships, why does the US Navy designate them as USS (United States Ship) and the British Navy designate them as HMS (Her Majesty's Ship)

Submarines in Her Majesty's service also use the prefix "HMS", standing for "Her Majesty's Submarine".

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by StuM

...There are also other references to "submarine navigation" and "submarine machinery" etc elsewhere in that link but the word submarine as a noun doesn't appear anywhere.

Yep.

One source;

submarine (n.)

"submarine boat," 1899, from submarine (adj.). Earlier "a creature living under the sea" (1703). The short form sub is first recorded 1917. As a type of sandwich from 1955, so called from the shape of the roll. Related: Submariner.

[MicHughV]

my first...er...harrumph...." floating" contrivance....was a 40 gallon steel drum cut lengthwise in half...to which I fitted a broom stick, some string and a bedsheet....I managed to clamber aboard this device without cutting myself on the sharp edges and successfully floated across a watering hole for wild game...I don't recall how old I was...7-8 ???....but nonetheless...I did it......I can say with confidence that a 40 gallon steel drum cut lengthwise in half is a " boat"...!!!

[Cliffhanger]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

you can put a boat on a ship....

but you can't put a ship on a boat....

simple...

Hmmm, complicated.

[KenKo]

With regard to subs being called "boats" deriving from "U boats" , one has to ask why U boats weren't originally called "U ships"? Perhaps it's turtles all the way down.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by KenKo

With regard to subs being called "boats" deriving from "U boats" , one has to ask why U boats weren't originally called "U ships"? Perhaps it's turtles all the way down.

ORIGIN OF U-BOAT
1910–15; <German U-Boot, short for Unterseeboot literally, undersea boat.

[goguygo]

I'm going to start calling my boat a ship, as I can apparently pack around a Ford Festiva or some such.

...but if I put a Land Yacht up on top, it will "go down with the ship" so I guess I'll just have to stick with Boat.

[desertsailor]

Originally Posted by Cabo Jim

To address your second question, what is a yacht.
The distinction between a boat and a yacht is this:
If you own a boat you must invite the ladies aboard.
If you own a yacht the ladies will invite themselves.
I chose the latter.

To put it another way...if the boat is larger, prettier, and more expensive than mine, they have a yacht and I have a boat.

[Wotname]

Boats are the things that sailors use to go home on when their ships sink.

[uptickguru]

There are two types of vessels. Submarines and Targets. Anything on top of the water is a target. US Navy Definition. LOL

[rgranger]

Originally Posted by Montanan

ship

Ship happens. But does boat happen?:

I have yacht heard of that before...

[lestersails]

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those that insist on dividing everything into two categories and those who don't.

[Ida_Lewis]

I live in Westbrook, Connecticut, where Bushnell built his submarine in his barn (which is still standing!). I consider this the American Colonial equivalent of Steve Jobs building computers in his garage.

She was shaped like a giant lentil, and there is a replica you can see in the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, CT, just a few miles up the Connecticut River from Long Island Sound.

Bushnell was one of our home-grown answers to the eighteenth-century gentleman scientist who was interested in everything. The submarine included some fancy custom-made brass instrumentation for the day, all figured out by Bushnell.

I didn’t realize Bushnell knew David Humphrey, another CT innovator/polymath who introduced Merino sheep to America from Spain (for the common good!) and founded a wool mill in CT which supplied Jefferson with American woolen broadcloth for his inaugural suit. Humphrey was also a good friend of George Washington and was ambassador to Portugal and then Spain.

[A CheeseHead]

$0.02 worth about "yachts", and not repeating the Dutch origin ...

As a racing sailor, I once belonged to the North American Yacht Racing Union. It subsequently became the U.S. Yacht Racing Union, then evolved (devolved?) into U.S.Sailing.

As a racing sailor, I read the yacht racing rules with great care. They referred to the vessels competing under those rules as "yachts". Those rules are now the Racing Rules of Sailing, and the word "yacht" appears nowhere in them. The vessels so regulated are now "boats" throughout those rules.

The present chair of the US Sailing committee that reviews and updates those rules every 4 years is an old friend and former fellow competitor in an Olympic class. I believe that he was one of the cabal that demoted the vessels we raced in from being yachts to being boats.

That being said, I recall 50 years ago, when hitch-hiking down to Florida to hitch-hike my way through the SORC, telling someone about going south to race sailboats. He asked what kind, and I told him "oh, 30 to 70 feet long" and he responded, with great emphasis, "those aren't boats, those are yachts".

[paul2884]

Originally Posted by John_Trusty

I love these meandering winter threads without a definite answer. Surprising that it was started, and participated in, by so many that could be out sailing (or working on the boat), rather than some snowed-in N. American.

In the spirit of drinks in the cockpit - Let's go back to the original definitions:
Ship - anything with a full-rigged ship sail plan (3 masts, square rigged).
Yacht - a Dutch hunter, or small, fast coastal attack boat, or something that resembles one.
Boat - everything that floats not otherwise classified - so an aircraft carrier or super tanker.

That is pretty much the definition as I had understood it (probably as defined in “Master and Commander”).
We tend to refer to our Vessel as a “Boat” as if we call it a “Yacht” people seem to think it is a Gin Palace with full crew and assume we have money - (we have to explain that the two are generally not compatible, you can have money or a boat not both).
If we call her a Boat then it passes without comment unless people are interested and then we can explain what we sail and where we go etc.
There are a couple of other descriptions that seem to appear in You-Tube etc. that seem a bit strange to my ear.
Going “on shift” at night - rather than “on watch”
Not may boats seem to have “Heads”
Many boats are “parked” rather than being moored.
Everyone seems to be a “Captain” now the description of “Skipper” as the person who is in charge of the vessel but not commercial qualified captain seems to have vanished.