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A boat is a watercraft or vessel, usually smaller than most ships. Some boats are commonly carried by a ship or on land using trailers - indeed, one of the definitions of a boat is a watercraft that can be carried by a ship.
A boat consists of one or more buoyancy structures called hulls and some system of propulsion, such as a screw, oars, paddles, a setting pole, a sail, paddlewheels or a water jet.
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Parts of a boat
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The roughly horizontal, but cambered structures spanning the hull of the boat are referred to as the "deck". In a ship there are often several, but a boat is unlikely to have more than one. The similar but usually lighter structure which spans a raised cabin is a coarch-roof. The "floor" of a cabin is properly known as the sole but is more likely to be called the floor. (A floor is properly, a structural member which ties a frame to the keelson and keel.) The underside of a deck is the deck head. The vertical surfaces dividing the internal space are "bulkheads". Some are important parts of the boat's structure. The front of a boat is called the bow or prow. The rear of the boat is called the stern. The right side is starboard and the left side is port. Many boats these days have a section called the gralper. This section is designed to reduce water flow to the non-aerodynamic parts of the boat.
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Types of boats
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On Boat Council you can find following types of boats:
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Boat building materials
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Boats can be classified by the material used to build them. Up till the mid 19th century all boats were wooden and some boats are still made of wood. With the industrial revolution, steel was relatively inexpensive and there were no forests left in Britain to supply the keels of larger wooden boats and the age of the steel ship started. Small boats were still made of wood as it was easier to work with. In the mid twentieth century with aluminium becoming plentiful, light and easier to work with than steel, aluminium boats started getting popular. Around the mid 1960s, boats made out of Fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) more commonly just called fiberglass started coming out and is now the most popular material used for recreational boats. The coast guard refers to such boats as FRP boats.
One of the main advantages of fiberglass boats was that if properly built, they were extremely strong, did not rust, corrode or rot, were relatively easy to maintain and for recreational boats quite practical. Fiberglass provides structural strength, especially when long woven strands are laid, sometimes from bow to stern and then soaked in epoxy (i.e. plastic) to form the hull of the boat. One of the disadvantges of fiberglass is that it is heavy and to alleviate this, various lighter components were incorporated into the design. One of the more common was to use cored fiberglass with the core being balsa wood completely encased in fiberglass. While this worked, the addition of wood made the structure of the boat susceptible to rotting. Similarly 'advanced composites' are ways to introduce less expensive and by some claims less structurally sound materials.
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Power can be applied to move boats through the water be several means. The most common means are:
- Human power (Rowing, paddling, setting pole etc.)
- Wind power (sailing)
- Motor powered screws
- Inboard
- Internal Combustion (Gasoline, Diesel)
- Steam (Coal, fuel oil)
- Nuclear (for large boats)
- Inboard/Outboard
- Outboard
- Paddle Wheel
- Water Jet (Jetski, Personal Water Craft, Jet Boat)
- Air Fans (Hovercraft, Air boat)
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