Boat

A boat is both an item and a vehicle entity used primarily for fast transport of players and passenger mobs over bodies of water.

Obtaining
Boats can be retrieved by repeatedly them until they drop as an item.

Tools and weapons with damage above 4 can instantly destroy a boat in one swipe.

Usage
Boats can be used for the transportations of players and mobs, sold for emeralds, or burned as fuel.

Trading
Master-level fisherman villagers always offer to buy a boat for an emerald. The type of boat depends on the biome outfit type of the villager; plains villagers offer to buy oak boats, taiga and snowy villagers offer to buy spruce boats, savanna villagers offer to buy acacia boats, desert and jungle villagers offer to buy jungle boats, and swamp villagers offer to buy dark oak boats.

Fuel
When used as fuel in a furnace, a boat lasts 60 seconds, smelting up to 6 items.

Entering
A player enters a boat by it, if the boat is not fully occupied (boats can hold two entities). Unlike beds, there is no message above the hotbar for attempting to enter a fully occupied boat.

Exiting
A boat can be exited by or, $$, pressing down the right analog stick on a controller, tapping the "Leave Boat" button when using touch controls, or. When exiting a boat, the player is placed in the direction the player is facing, or, if facing directly up or down, the player is placed in front of the boat. The exiting player is placed on land if that is possible from the dismounting position.

Motion
Boats do not turn with mouse-look.

With a keyboard or gamepad, boats are controlled using the, (turns left),  (turns right), and  keys. Using the key increases the field of vision, but does not increase speed as if sprinting.

With touchscreen controls, two buttons for steering appear. The right button or key steers to the left, and the left button or key steers to the right. Pressing both buttons moves the boat forward.

Since JE 1.9, it is no longer possible to ride a boat upstream. A boat lift, usually made from tripwire, piston, and optionally a slime block, can be used to move a ship up.

Speed
Boats move according to the player's control or water currents, with speed affected by the surface traversed. Boats move extremely quickly on ice, allowing for the construction of fast transportation systems in any dimension.

Flotation
A boat floats unless it enters a waterfall or moves over a bubble column, which cause boats to capsize or sink.

When a boat moves over a bubble column, it begins to shake. If the bubbles are caused by a magma block, all passengers are expelled and the boat sinks. A sunken boat floats only when it has been destroyed and replaced, or when it emerges from the currents keeping it down.

Destruction
As boats are entities, they have health. Boats effectively have just over (exactly 4 damage is not quite enough to destroy a boat), and regenerate $$ per game tick.

Boats can be destroyed by explosions, fire and lava (but not magma blocks), cactus (in java and bedrock pre-1.16.100) and by being attacked.

When a boat is destroyed under normal conditions, it drops itself in item form. In certain conditions, such as when being dropped from sufficient height, it drops two sticks and three wood planks upon being destroyed.

Passengers
Boats can support two riders, including mobs. Mobs cannot exit a boat and are trapped until the boat gets destroyed, or until the player uses a fishing rod or lead to remove the mob. This can be used to easily transport mobs, although hostile mobs still attack while in boats.

A player cannot both move (row) and use items at the same time. Note that it is still possible to initialise an item use (e.g. start eating) and row the boat while the item is still in the middle of the use animation. Although the boating animation overrides the item use animation, the item can still be successfully consumed. Does not work with items that are triggered by the release of the use button (e.g. bow, trident).

In Java Edition, boats can completely nullify fall damage for itself and any players/mobs riding it, making it useful for transportation/travel through mountains or through the Nether. This does not work in Bedrock Edition, however: while the boat survives, its occupants still receive fall damage.

Riding a boat does not deplete hunger, making it an efficient way to travel.

Being in a boat limits the player's mouse-look to the forward 210° arc.

Collision
When on the ground, boats have 0.455 the height of a block.

Riding a boat over a lily pad causes the lily pad to drop, although the boat speed stutters a bit.

Game Edition Differences

 * Java Edition


 * When moving fast enough, a "water spray" visual effect represents the bow wake.
 * A sunken boat is sunk forever, unable to be retrieved until it is broken by the player.
 * For mobs to enter a boat, they must be on the side of the boat. A mob cannot control the boat.


 * Bedrock Edition


 * A sunken boat resumes floating when it emerges from the current or the waterfall that was keeping it down.
 * Mobs can be 'picked up' by riding a boat near them.

ID




Entity data
Boats have entity data associated with them that contain various properties of the entity.

Trivia

 * Sand, red sand, concrete powder, gravel, anvils, and dragon eggs drop as items when they fall onto a boat that is in water.
 * Boats travel at fast speeds when on ice, packed ice, and frosted ice. They travel even faster on blue ice.
 * The crafting recipes for boats are the only recipes that can be unlocked in the recipe book without having any items, by jumping into water. They are also one of the two items that don't require a specific item to be unlocked on the recipe book, the other being the chest.
 * Dolphins chase players in boats.
 * Boats are the only wood-based item that cannot be crafted using crimson planks or warped planks.
 * A chest is short enough that a boat falls onto it rather than crashes into it.
 * In Legacy Console versions of the game, holding the movement stick to the side in a boat on blue Ice causes the player to spin quickly. If a passenger is in the boat while this occurs, when the player exits the boat after it reaches maximum velocity (attained after about three seconds), for most mobs, the mob's head may spin uncontrollably. For some mobs, however, nothing happens (such as slimes and ghasts). The mob may also get its head stuck at an angle. Thorough testing was done on Minecraft: Wii U Edition, although the glitch was originally discovered on the Xbox 360 Edition.
 * Another glitch $$ causes boats to float downward slowly, while attaining a high horizontal speed.