Is it a boat or a ship?

[insaneworks]

Again I'm confused. When is a boat a boat and a ship a ship? I know size matters, but as I am the way I am, I'd like to have an exact answer.

Photo: CC BY-SA gallery.insaneworks.fi
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Let's say I have a friend whose neighbor is quite an irritating superlative type. You all know that type.

If my friend had it hard as a child, the neighbor had it harder. If my friend has an excellent job and quite a nice amount of savings, the neighbor has just a superb job, lovable boss and double the savings my friend has. If my friend is sick, the neighbors whole family is much more sicker. Almost like Ebola, but miraculously they all survive. And if my friend buys a boat, the neighbor surely buys a bigger one. Just enough that the neighbor can brag how they didn't bother to get a pathetic boat, but a fine and dandy ship. So my friend tells me.

Photo: CC BY-SA gallery.insaneworks.fi
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So let me ask again. What is the size difference between a boat and a ship? 24 meters? If my friend buys a 23,5 meter boat and my friends neighbor buys exactly the same kind of a boat, and I mean literally exactly the same, but 24,5 meters long, is then my friends ship called a boat and my friends neighbors boat called a ship?

And don't you come here telling me the difference between a ship and a boat depends on a number of factors, because in this scenario there are no other factors. So give me a number.

Give
Me
An
Excact
Number

P.S.
I really, really, really wanted to put the horizon in the middle in these boat pictures.

Comments

[cryptoandcoffee]

Hi insane. here are some answers i found for you. No size in meters etc as apparently that doesn't work for this.
A ship can carry a boat but a boat can't carry a ship. Another one is down to functionality. A boats functionality happens on deck but a ship inside it.
This I found as well.

1. Among sailing vessels, the distinction between ships and boats is that a ship is a square-rigged craft with at least three masts, and a boat isn't. With regard to motorized craft, a ship is a large vessel intended for oceangoing or at least deep-water transport, and a boat is anything else.
   Hope this helps.

[insaneworks]

Thanks for your answer!

But hypothetically speaking (or theoretically speaking, I'm not sure which one applies here better) if I could downsize a ship, a proper big ocean going ship, on which length would it stop being a ship and turn in to a boat? Like in the movie Downsizing. The downsized people were still people, even if they were very little people. And no, I haven't seen the movie. Just the trailer. Very intriguing.

[cryptoandcoffee]

If you make it small enough to fit onto another ship then yes it's a boat.

[marygreensmith]

interestingly I dont know if they have a name for boat in Croatia, the authorities kept calling our boat a ship, and it definately is not a ship as only 11m!

[insaneworks]

It may be that what is a boat and what is a ship varies in different languages. In Finnish a steamboat is always a steamship, not a boat.