A boat is a vehicle and an item used for transporting a player across water or ice's surface.
Mechanics
A player sits in a boat the same way they sit in a Minecart. The boat's speed is controlled with the forward key and steered with the left and right keys. Boats do not break (as of 1.9) and destroy lily pads upon contact. They have two seats: one for the driver a player (who first entered if in multiplayer) in front and one for the passenger (another player or mob) in back. To retrieve a fully-assembled boat for one's inventory, a player needs to exit the boat, and then strike it several times with fists or tools.
Using a boat is much faster than swimming, and lets a player stay atop the surface, without the need of holding down the 'jump' button. It also doesn't consume a player's hunger, so it's possible to camp inside boats.
A fisherman villager may buy a specific boat type for an emerald, but in the Java edition, fisherman villagers will only buy oak boats for emeralds.
Crafting
| Boat (Java Edition) | Boat (Bedrock Edition and Legacy Console Edition) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | None | None | None | None | None | |
| Wood Planks | None | Wood Planks | Wood Planks | Wooden Shovel | Wood Planks | |
| Wood Planks | Wood Planks | Wood Planks | Wood Planks | Wood Planks | Wood Planks | |
Trivia
- You can get the boat's recipe very easily by contacting with water.
- Some players have tried "Water slides" in creative with boats, although they did not work before 1.9.
- The guardian's laser cannot destroy boats.
- As of 1.9 snapshots, boats can be crafted for all types of wood.
- In Pocket Edition, Windows 10 Edition, and as of 1.9, boats move with oars.
- Before, boats were controlled with a player's camera and forward key, and were destroyed when colliding with blocks or mobs at high speeds, yielding three oak planks and two sticks.
- Boats can be used as a fuel in furnaces, smelting 6 items per boat.
- Any mob next to a boat will be forced to ride, with the exception of pets and rideable mobs. This prevents the mob from walking (or teleporting, in the case of an enderman), allowing for an easy kill.
- If an iron golem enters a boat, it's hitbox will take up all the space around the boat. The boat will then be indestructible by projectiles or melee, but it can still be destroyed with explosives or after the golem dies.
- In the PC version of Minecraft, boats are crafted with any six matching types of wood planks; in console versions, any kinds of wood planks together will do; in Pocket Edition, it is the same recipe as PC, but a shovel is needed in the center of the recipe.
- A bow at full power can destroy a boat.
- A boat will move extremely fast across the top of ice blocks. Out of the three types of ice, a boat will move fastest on Blue Ice.
- If a boat enters on top of a bubble column that is caused by a magma block or soul sand underwater, it will begin shaking violently and splash water everywhere. The boat will either sink or jump depending on the block that caused the bubble column (Soul sand causes it to jump, while magma blocks cause it to sink).
