A boat is a vehicle and an item used for transporting a player across bodies of water or surfaces of ice.
Mechanics
To mount a boat, a player must use the item. It can be exited by pressing the Sneak key, and, in Bedrock Edition, by pressing down the right analog stick, tapping on the "Leave Boat" button, or pressing the Jump key.
With a keyboard or gamepad, boats are controlled using the keyboard on computers, the left stick on consoles, or touchscreen buttons on mobile devices.
A boat moves according to the player's control or water currents:
- On water, boats move 28.8 km/h.
- On Ice, Frosted Ice, and Packed Ice, boats move 144.0 km/h
- On Blue Ice, boats move extremely fast at 252.0 km/h.
- On land, boats move extremely slow at 7.2 km/h
A boat floats unless it enters a waterfall or moves over a bubble column, which causes the 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. Boats are not damaged by collisions and can break and destroy lily pads upon contact.
Given that boats are entities, they have health – just over 4 (
). They can be destroyed by explosions, fire, lava, and being attacked. When destroyed, it will drop itself in item form.
Boats can support two riders, including Mobs.
Dolphins will chase players in 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.
Using a boat is much faster than swimming, and lets a player stay on top of the surface without the need of holding down the "Jump" button. And given that boats don't consume a player's hunger, it is possible to camp inside boats.
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 mode 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 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).
