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Terminology of a Sail-boat

This may be a stupid question from a landlubber, but is it really the case that Polynesian vessels are all designated as boats? The definition of 'can fit on a larger vessel' doesn't seem to apply.

I mean, when James Cook visited New Zealand the largest Maori waka had crews of eighty people and were up to forty metres long- longer, incidentally, than Cook's vessel. Was there a ship in the world that such a canoe could have fit aboard, and if not, then surely by definition it was a ship?
 
This may be a stupid question from a landlubber, but is it really the case that Polynesian vessels are all designated as boats? The definition of 'can fit on a larger vessel' doesn't seem to apply.

I mean, when James Cook visited New Zealand the largest Maori waka had crews of eighty people and were up to forty metres long- longer, incidentally, than Cook's vessel. Was there a ship in the world that such a canoe could have fit aboard, and if not, then surely by definition it was a ship?

I don't think it's a stretch to say western focused categorisation doesn't handle non-western things well.
 
This may be a stupid question from a landlubber, but is it really the case that Polynesian vessels are all designated as boats? The definition of 'can fit on a larger vessel' doesn't seem to apply.

I mean, when James Cook visited New Zealand the largest Maori waka had crews of eighty people and were up to forty metres long- longer, incidentally, than Cook's vessel. Was there a ship in the world that such a canoe could have fit aboard, and if not, then surely by definition it was a ship?

The issue is, "ship" is a flexible term that varies heavily, but always leans to the big. The largest waka could probably qualify as ships if they had a more segmented construction, with a structural floor layers like a viking longboat/longship (which themselves fall into a fairly fuzzy category since a knarr was a boat and a dragon-boat was a ship despite being of identical design except scale) or have the stringers removed or turned into a structural frame.

I don't think it's a stretch to say western focused categorisation doesn't handle non-western things well.

More to say the given system of classification was started with sailing ships- and a ship without sails was seen (not wrongly) as distinctly inferior. If I get the chance, I'll need to look into why they didn't mount crabclaws on them, because unless the waka were entirely a tension-based construction they could easily mount sail based on the hull shape.

For myself, I'd love to see an article on the less orthodox terminology that comes and goes, such as: "I didn't have a franger, so my pusher made me get off at Fratton." I suspect that the meaning of this may not be immediately obvious to the casual reader

This is an article on sailboats, not the godforsaken wasteland that's sculling. Those boats are basically drag racers, and about as useful to boot.
 
Sculling? Raises eyebrow. I've not heard it called that before.

Sculling refers to the hull of the boat, a scull. The word has, 'ere I remember correctly, Dutch roots and means shell. The general British terminology is 'cockleshell' for that type of hull though, although I think you call the sport "crew". Makes no sense whatsoever, since you crew most racing vessels except catboats, but that's the English for you.
 
My phrase really has nothing to do with sculling. It's RN slang.

Then we're looking at some odd cross-contamination then, since what you said glossed as "we've got a spare (franger) so you'll have to get out at (location)" since the team captain of a scull is often called the pusher.
 
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