When I began to seriously think about the difference between a boat and a ship, I thought I needed to seek information outside the boating community. It also dawned on me that I might need a broader global perspective on the issue. As an American sailor, the definition of each harkens back centuries to a time when the pervasive thought was that the earth was flat.

I came away from my research unsatisfied and not feeling I nailed any sort of cohesive definition, so I retreated from that path and turned to the tried and true Merriam-Webster dictionary and got some clarity of the world view. It goes like this:

A ship is either “a large seagoing vessel,” “a sailing vessel having a bowsprit and usually three masts each composed of a lower mast, a topmast, and a topgal...