Boat

A boat is both an item and a vehicle entity.

Obtaining
Boats can be retrieved by them.

Usage
Press the button on the boat to mount it. A boat can be exited by pressing the key.

Boats move according to the player's control or water currents. Boats move significantly faster than a player can walk on land or water, but are slower than minecarts. If on land, a boat may still be controlled but extremely slowly. In 1.9, boats move extremely fast when placed on ice.

When moving fast enough, there will be "water spray" visual effect representing the bow wake.

Behavior
Boats can be controlled using, , , and. In Pocket Edition, two buttons for steering appear instead. The right button steers to the left, the left button steers to the right. Pressing both buttons move forward, while tapping both buttons rapidly accelerates the boat.

Boats can be used to safely travel through water, though if they fall too far onto solid blocks they may crash. A crashed boat is destroyed and drops wood planks and sticks instead of a boat item.

Boats effectively have just over (exactly 4 damage isn't quite enough to destroy it), and regenerate $1/10$ per tick. When on the ground, they have 0.455 the height of a block.

Boats can support two riders, including mobs. Mobs are 'picked up' by riding a boat near them. In Pocket Edition, a mob can drive the boat without the aid of the player. Only the player/mob that boarded first can control the boat.

Console Edition
Boats are smaller and less resistant to damage. They will break if they hit a block when moving too fast, and are easily pushed around by water currents. They always face the direction they last moved. Boats act like solid blocks in that they can sit on top of mobs, items and players, and entities can stay on top of them. When on the ground, they have 0.6 the height of a block.

Downward flowing water causes boats to be stuck at the bottom. Boats will rise to and bob on the surface of water that is not flowing downward.

If a boat runs into a lily pad or snow layer, the block will be broken. If the boat is traveling at high speed, it may crash.

If a boat runs slowly into another entity, it will bounce off and change direction. Running into a block will merely stop movement.

If the boat is moving quickly enough that splashes are appearing behind it, running into an entity or block will crash the boat. The boat will also crash if it falls to the ground from a height of more than 3 blocks; falling a shorter distance will not crash the boat regardless of speed.

Drops
A boat drops its item form when attacked (which covers most damage types that most mobs have). When crashed, however, it drops 3 oak wood planks (the type of wood it is made out of) and 2 sticks.

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

Trivia

 * Crashing into soul sand at water level will often (but not always) slow the boat enough that it won't crash.
 * A chest is short enough that a boat will fall onto it rather than crashing into it.
 * Sand, gravel, anvils and dragon eggs drop when they fall onto a boat that is in water.
 * If a mob is stacked on top of a boat in water (such as with the command), the boat can be controlled by that mob.
 * Although you can make a boat with any type of wood, it will drop oak wood if crashed.