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 punching them until they drop as an item.

Boats can be crafted with any overworld planks.

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

Usage
Boats can be used for the transportation of players and mobs, sold for emeralds, or burnt 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 Java Edition 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 boat up. Players can also use water buckets to move a boat upward, although a player must be steering the boat.

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 atop still or flowing water. $$, a boat sinks if it enters a waterfall. $$, a boat does not capsize in a waterfall but floats up.

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. In Java Edition, a sunken boat cannot be re-floated; it must be replaced. In Bedrock Edition, a boat resumes floating when it emerges from the currents keeping it down, or when the bubble column is blocked or removed.

Dolphins chase players riding a boat in motion, occasionally bumping the boat, causing it to shake briefly.

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, and by being punched. Boats made invulnerable with commands cannot be broken by any of these, however they still cannot be used to travel on lava because they sink.

When a boat is destroyed under normal conditions, it drops itself in item form. In certain conditions, such as when falling for exactly 12, 13, 49, 51, 111, 114, 198, 202, 310, or 315 blocks, it drops two sticks and three planks upon being destroyed.

Passengers
Boats can support two riders, including mobs. Except for endermen $$, a mob cannot exit a boat and is 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 transport mobs, although hostile mobs still attack while in boats. Mobs riding a boat don't despawn, and don't count toward the mob cap.

A player cannot both move (row) and use items at the same time. It is still possible to initialize 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. This does not work with items that are triggered by the release of the use button (e.g. bow, trident).

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 is confirmed by Mojang to be an intentional feature. However $1/10$, due to a bug, boats can break when falling from certain heights, and the riders take 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
A boat has a solid collision box, which means players and other entities can't go through it even with high speed. Falling blocks are also blocked by boats.

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


 * 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.
 * When moving fast enough, a "water spray" visual effect represents the bow wake.


 * 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.
 * Leads can be attached to boats, though the lead often breaks on land, due to boats moving much slower on land.
 * Endermen can teleport out of a boat, but any other mob can be captured by a boat.

ID




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




 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.
 * See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Trivia

 * Sand, red sand, concrete powder, gravel, anvils, and dragon eggs drop as items when they fall onto a boat that is in water.
 * A chest is short enough that a boat falls onto it rather than crashes into it.
 * $$, 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.