section_path: Nomenclature
section_name: Nomenclature
paragraph_text: Nomenclature
  
  Ships are typically larger than boats, but there is no universally accepted distinction between the two. Ships generally can remain at sea for longer periods of time than boats. A legal definition of ship from Indian case law is a vessel that carries goods by sea. A common notion is that a ship can carry a boat, but not vice versa. A ship is likely to have a full-time crew assigned. A US Navy rule of thumb is that ships heel towards the outside of a sharp turn, whereas boats heel towards the inside because of the relative location of the center of mass versus the center of buoyancy. American and British 19th century maritime law distinguished "vessels" from other watercraft; ships and boats fall in one legal category, whereas open boats and rafts are not considered vessels.
  
  Particularly in the Age of Sail, the word ship might apply generally to a seagoing vessel or particularly to a full-rigged sailing ship with three or more masts, all square-rigged. Other rigs on seagoing vessels included brig, barque, and barquentine.
  
  Some large vessels are traditionally called boats, notably submarines. Others include Great Lakes freighters, riverboats, and ferryboats, which may be designed for operation on inland or protected coastal waters.
  
  In most maritime traditions ships have individual names, and modern ships may belong to a ship class often named after its first ship.
  
  In many documents the ship name is introduced with a ship prefix being an abbreviation of the ship class, for example "MS" (motor ship) or "SV" (sailing vessel), making it easier to distinguish a ship name from other individual names in a text.
  
  "Ship" (along with "nation") is an English word that has retained a female grammatical gender in some usages, which allows it sometimes to be referred to as a "she" without being of female natural gender.