Boat

HISTORY OF BOATS

The first boats were rafts made from logs lashed together and paddled by hand. These simple watercraft were likely one of the first inventions that allowed early humans to venture out onto bodies of water for fishing, transportation, and exploration.

Rafts were made by gathering logs or large pieces of buoyant wood and tying them together with vines, ropes, or other materials. These rafts were effective for navigating calm waters like rivers and lakes. The use of hand paddles, made from sticks or flat pieces of wood, allowed people to steer and move the raft across the water.

As humans continued to innovate and develop their boat-building skills, they progressed to hollowed-out tree trunks (canoes) and later built boats from other materials like reeds, animal skins, and eventually wood planks and metals as technology advanced.

The 10,000 year old Pesse canoe, the world's oldest known boat, was found in a Dutch peat bog.

The Ancient Egyptians used bundles of reeds from the River Nile to build reed boats and were the first to attach sails to them. They also built boats from planks of wood tied together with string.

The Phoenicians capitalised on seafaring trade in the Mediterranean. They used oars as well as sails and navigated by the stars. They reached the coasts of southern Europe and North Africa.

For many centuries, rivers were the great natural highways, the Thames the greatest of them all. Bridges were non-existent; boats provided the link from shore to shore. Watermen thus filled a significant place in London's life. At one period their number exceeded 40,000 (in a population of just over six million). As nowadays commuters stand on street footpaths to signal a passing taxi, so wayfarers then from numerous piers used to beckon a barge-man to take them up or down or across the river.

The right side of a boat was called the starboard side due to the fact that the astronavigators used to stand out on the plank (which was on the right side) to get an unobstructed view of the stars. The left side was called the port side because that was the side that you put in on at the port.

The Experiment was an early nineteenth century boat powered by horses running on a treadmill and propelled by a then-novel type of screw propeller.

The 72-year-old Alexander Graham Bell set the world water speed record in 1919 by reaching speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour in his hydrofoil boat. For many years it was the fastest boat in the world. 

Australian Ken Warby set the world water speed record of 317.60 mph on his boat Spirit Of Australia in New South Wales on October 8, 1978. The record still stands today. Warby's record is difficult to break because of the high speeds involved. At these speeds, even a small mistake can be fatal. The boat is also subjected to massive forces, and it can easily break apart if it is not properly designed.

The Spirit Of Australia a special boat called a hydroplane, which is designed to skim across the surface of the water at high speeds. Hydroplanes are powered by jet engines, and they can reach speeds of over 500 km/h. 

Model of the Spirit of Australia. By Matilda Wikipedia

BOAT TRIVIA

The most popular boat name in the U.S. is Aquaholic. This name has been popular for several years, and it is a reflection of the growing popularity of boating in the United States.

The key difference between a ship and a boat is a ship can carry a boat, but a boat cannot carry a ship.

The phrase "jet lag" was once called "boat lag", back before airplanes existed.

Here is a list of songs about boats