Definition of "boat"

Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, […]. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.

1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

Philander went into the next room […] and came back with a salt mackerel […] . Next he put the mackerel in a fry-pan, and the shanty began to smell like a Banks boat just in from a v'yage.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices).

2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

It creates 4 blocks, a boat, and a glider every 768 generations.

1994 May 7, David Bell, “HighLife - An Interesting Variant of Life (part 1/3)”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet)

The program is represented as a string of boats (1s) and blocks (0s).

2004 May 24, Paul Chapman, “A Prototype Programmable Universal Constructor for Conway's Life”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet)

For many stable patterns, by the way, there are other input glider lanes where the gliders are caught and turned into boats, which are then cleanly deleted by another glider coming in on the same lane.

2005 February 23, Dave Greene, “exist glider gun able of reconstruction in Life?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet)