
Boats may be motorized, like a speed boat, or they may sail, or they may be man-powered, like a rowboat or a kayak. But when people refer to boats, they are almost always referring to something smaller than either a yacht or a ship. Well, a boat is harder to define, because a yacht is technically a boat, and a ship is technically a boat. This may be passengers, yes (in reference to cruise ships and some navy ships) but most ships are for carrying cargo–or even carrying equipment to do work on other ships including repair work or refueling.
#COMMERCIAL VESSEL MEANING PLUS#
Ships are typically so large that they need not only one trained navigator but a set of navigators, plus an entire engineering team, and includes many more positions.įinally, a ship is meant to carry things. They are meant to be traversing the open ocean for very long periods of time, from one continent to the next, while a yacht may only rarely set across the ocean and most often stays somewhat near land.Ī ship will also have a much larger crew than a yacht or a boat. Ships tend to have advanced navigation and technology, but much more advanced than that of a yacht due to the size, the speed, and the routes that a ship will take. An ship can refer to a cruise ship, a naval ship, a tanker, a container ship, and many other commercial vessels. Ships are generally so large that they would never be found in a lake, with some exceptions for the Great Lakes, and are made for navigating the high seas of the open ocean. The term ship is most commonly associated with a very large boat, and something that is not as fancy as a yacht (one exception is that cruise ships can still be very fancy, but are referred to as ships because of their size and power.) But a yacht is a very specific kind of boat. So, is a yacht a boat? Yes, technically a yacht is a boat. One interesting thing to note is that outside of the United States, a yacht refers to a sailboat, and a motorized yacht is called a “motor yacht”. This can be anywhere from a crew of four or five up to a crew of a few dozen on large yachts.
#COMMERCIAL VESSEL MEANING FULL#
Likewise, a yacht tends to have a full crew to help with the navigation, engineering, repairs, as well as having stewards that serve the yacht’s guests. Yachts are able to handle rougher ocean waves, and they are also equipped with more advanced navigation and guidance instruments than smaller boats. (Jeff Bezos just built a 417 foot yacht, but that’s really breaking yacht records.)īecause of the size, yachts tend to operate in larger bodies of water–generally the ocean.

And some yachts, known as superyachts, go even beyond that. A yacht tends to be anywhere between 35 feet up to 160 feet. There’s also something to be said about size. “Yacht” infers some amount of luxury, and definitely recreation. Boat What is a Yacht?Ī yacht, I think everyone would agree, is fancier than a ship or a boat. Let’s get into some definitions, and we’re going to start with the easiest to explain: What is a yacht? What is a ship? And what is a boat? Yacht vs. What’s the difference? We know in our gut that there are differences between these three seafaring vessels, but unless you’re a harbor master do you really know what counts as what? This is the case with the case of boat vs. This is especially true when some of the definitions overlap.

Language is a tricky thing, and picking out the differences between similar terms can be confusing.
