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Bible Study lifeboat or cargo transport boat?

mechtec

Member
Greetings all, new member here :)
In Our small Wednesday bible study, (Acts 27 16-30) This is where they are in trouble with the storm, and they were bringing in the ship's boat with difficulty.
Now the Pastor brought up that this, ship's boat was not a lifeboat per se but a cargo transport boat, because of the draft of the ship, it could not get into alot of ports. So they used this cargo boat to off load the ships cargo to shore. Now i always thought of this boat as a lifeboat utility type boat. Louw defines it as (6.45 σκάφη, ης f: a small boat which was normally kept aboard a larger ship and used by sailors in placing anchors, repairing the ship, or saving lives in the case of storms—‘small boat, skiff.’ ἰσχύσαμεν μόλις περικρατεῖς γενέσθαι τῆς σκάφης ‘with some difficulty we were able to make the ship’s boat secure’ Ac 27:16. In some languages σκάφη is equivalent to ‘rowboat’ or ‘lifeboat.’

Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.) (58). New York: United Bible Societies.)

Which is right? small lifeboat type or cargo transport type boat?

thanks much
 
Hi Mechtech and welcome.
A ships boat is traditionally a utility boat, used for various tasks. In early years before dredging of ports and channels, they were used to ferry and load and offload cargo and passengers where the ships draught was too much to enter port. Once at sea, as the boat was stored on board the vessel or sometimes towed behind the ship on a painter, enabling it to be used for life saving and exploration forays.
 
Thanks much for your reply, I believe i am leaning in that explanation of the ship's boat, guess i am still trying to get a hold on how big this ship's boat was, and also if it was a flat bottom type boat or v shape? Am having a hard time trying to imagine this boat on deck of the ship. it must have took up alot of room?
 
Size depended on the mother ship. They could be anywhere up to30 feet in length but as far as I'm aware were generally 18-24 feet. In the famous Bounty mutiny, Captain Bligh and his supporters used the ships skiff / launch / boat to sail from Norfolk Island to Timor...it's one of the greatest feats of navigation in maritime history.
Back to topic, the bounty's launch was 21 feet and was equipped with a gaff rig (sail arrangement) There were 18 crew with Bligh so that tells you the size of the interior of the boat.
usually the boats were built with a V hull rather than flat bottomed as this made them more stable at sea. Flat bottomed punts were mainly used on coastal trader vessels only because of the shallower waters and calmer conditions.
The examples I've given are from the 19th century, (that's the period Iknow best) but up until the late 19th century ship and boat design had hardly had much change for many hundreds of years except for the materials used and a few sail configuration changes.
Hope that helps a bit
 
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