Boat, generic term for little watercraft propelled by paddles, oars, sail, or motor, open or partially decked, and typically but 45 feet (roughly 14 metres) long . A vessel larger than this is often customarily classed as a ship, although the word boat is usually applied to certain working vessels—such as tugboats—that could also be of considerable size.

Romantic Boat

The early sorts of the boat were many, and their design and structure depended upon available material. Where suitable timber was at hand, the raft and later the dugout developed. Where suitable timber wasn't available, reed and bamboo rafts, skin-covered canoes, and skin floats made by inflating the hides of small animals might be found. In some 

timbered areas bark canoes were used. it's going to be assumed that the boat developed from the canoe forms; it's evident that boats didn't appear until long after various sorts of canoes 

came into being.

During the evolution of the dugout the edges were raised by means of planks, and this led to gradual reduction in size of the dugout portion until it became a mere keel piece, with the remainder of the hull built of plank. However, there's reason to doubt that the event of the plank boat was confined to areas where dugout canoes were used. The bark canoe and therefore the skin boat were employed in some timbered areas, and therefore the rigid framing of the skin boat may are adapted naturally to plank construction. This possibility is supported by the very fact that the longitudinal and transverse framing of most planked boats is essentially an equivalent as that employed in skin boats.