Difference between boats and ships

[Coltrek]

A boat can be hauled, but a ship must be drydocked.
A Yacht is a vessel with paid hands.


Personally, I don't like the term Yacht, sounds pompous.

[psjanker]

Key West accords in the 1950s between the military service branches allowed the Army to have ships but they had to be more than a certain length (300 something feet) and have a keel descending no more than a certain number of feet. Army also had to call their ships....boats. Today the Army transportation corps has more boats (Landing Ship Tank, LSTs) than the Navy has Ships. In the same light the Army was allowed to have Aircraft but we were not allowed to place weapons on them. Over the last half century or so there has been a bit of cheating going around with each of the services, beginning with the Army putting weapons on helicopters during Vietnam.

V/r

Pete

[pbmaise]

I have adopted a definition of yacht that eliminates vessels that used to be called yachts but fell into disrepair. You know what I am talking about...those huge vessels that once upon a time were in fantastic condition and now have passed through so many different hands and deferred maintenance.

To me a yacht is any vessel with accommodations that is not used for shipping goods, military purpose, or commercial fishing and is maintained to such a high standard that it stands out from its surroundings without blemish. I.E. There is almost nothing that can be done that would improve the vessel further. It needs no new paint, needs no cleaning, and the engine room looks like it is never used.

This eliminates the vessel I saw crossing the Pacific with big black diesel stains on the stern despite the fact it was owned by a billionaire. It also eliminates the big termite invested hulks I saw in Thailand. Big tired old vessels no wealthy people want are not yachts.

In my book the term "yacht" can apply to very small sailing vessels that are maintained to stellar conditions. This is especially true when a bright and shiny vessel is found in places like the Philippines in the company of vessels that are now owned by Filipina wives after the owner passed. The yacht can be much smaller than neighboring vessels. It is all a matter of condition.

Even though my vessel was much larger than most sailing vessels, I never liked having someone call it a yacht. I specifically called it a sailing vessel.

If you venture to One 15 Marina, which is right down wind of a huge oil refinery, you will find many yachts. The yachts are the ones that are cleaned daily despite the fact the owner may not come that day.

[CaptFigmo]

USN. If it can be carried on a ship it is a boat.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by MV Caroline

The old standby adage is that a true ship cannot be shipped.

Originally Posted by CaptFigmo

USN. If it can be carried on a ship it is a boat.

I'll just leave this here

[Bramvl]

I remember a film in which an American couple boards a British ship for a nice cruise and asks a salted sailor: where is the captain of this boat? Answer from the sailor: the captain of this ship is his cabin sir..
Later the ship (not the Titanic bwt) gets into trouble and everybody has to abandon ship when the man asks the same sailor: in which ship we have to go? In the lifeboat, sir..


I have no idea which film (>30 years ago) but these lines were solidly saved into my memory.

[ob44]

Originally Posted by Cliffhanger

I always thought that a boat is a small vessel and a ship is a large, commercial or naval vessel requiring a crew to operate.

But I have noticed many posts referring to small sailing vessels as ships. It seems to mostly be Americans, so, I am wondering if there is a different definition in the US?

My next question will be "what is a yacht", but lets start with the easy one first....

For non-military vessels, I differentiate ships from boats by the simple and practical rule of USCG licensing requirements. Any vessel that requires an unlimited license to conn the vessel (i.e., a license of mate or master "of any gross tons") is a ship. Anything less, e.g., tug (2500 gross tons freight and towing license), workboat, pleasure craft, is a boat. I don't have such a simple rule for naval vessels. I do note that calling a 350' submarine a "boat" seems silly, but "submareeners" (not submariners) are a different bunch.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by Coltrek

A boat can be hauled, but a ship must be drydocked.
A Yacht is a vessel with paid hands.


Personally, I don't like the term Yacht, sounds pompous.

This pretty much sums it up except you ca build a ship of a rail but you have to use a dry dock after that. Same with a boat. Excepting destroyers and subs are still boats.

Now as to the other items two in decimal
Binary = 10
Octal = 2
Hex = 2

Octal =1-7
Hex =1-F

[ChrisJHC]

And from the Australian Government:

https://www.amsa.gov.au/vessels-operators

“The marine order defines yacht as a vessel that:

is less than 3000 GT
is for commercial use for sport or pleasure
does not carry cargo
does not carry more than 12 passengers.

A yacht does not need to be designed to carry sail and may be a training vessel, sail training vessel or a short range yacht.”

[Redline452]

Originally Posted by uptickguru

Laughs, of those 10 people who understand binary there are 1/16 who understand Hexidecimal and 3 who understand Octal

as long as our vessels are ashore, continuing off-topic but in true internet forum tradition, picking the nits: 1/F who understand Hex and 11 who understand Octal.

[ChrisJHC]

To add to the confusion over the naming of submarines, here is a report on the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney Harbour in WW2:

https://www.navy.gov.au/history/feat...sydney-harbour

It refers to a number of I-class submarines, one of which carried and launched a “float plane”. This would make that submarine an aircraft carrier.

Another two I-class submarines carried midget submarines on board (that did the actual attack). This would make the I-class submarines “ships” and the midget submarines “boats”!

[rossdv8]

Originally Posted by JaaaPeee

When a boat has an ice maker aboard, it is a yacht.

I used to consider my 26 foot Seaway 25 a 'yacht' before she was tossed ashore by a cyclone.
No watermaker - but she did have a cappuccino maker..

[raahell]

Great question. I view the problem in a different way.

The key thing is that an owner may label their vessel "boat", "ship", "yacht" or whatever they wish. This allows the rest of us to look at said vessel and judge not it, but the owner.

[Lodesman]

A ship has accommodations; a boat does not. A yacht is a small vessel with accommodations, and therefore it is less pompous to call it a yacht, vice calling it a ship.

If you've seen the accommodations on a diesel submarine, you'd know why they call it a boat.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Ike

This is one of those threads that can go on forever and serves to keep us busy during winter and the pandemic, when we have nothing better to do while waiting for spring, until we can launch our boat and go sailing or fishing, or whatever we like to do. (how's that for run on sentence?)

Or when sitting monitoring the VHF on SAR watch