A flat-bottomed boat is a boat with a shallow draft, two-chined hull , which allows it to be used in shallow bodies of water, such as rivers , because it is less likely to ground .
5-447: A pünte (plural: pünten ) is the German term for a type of non-motorised river boat and thus a special type of flat-bottomed boat . It is propelled manually using a crank or hauled by horses on the shore. Today pünten are used almost exclusively as ferries . Pünten were built from wood. They had a flat bottom and the sides sloped only slight outwards. Pünten were often fitted with
10-615: A sail, although this was usually insufficient for propulsion, so that the boat was mostly hauled as well. A horse was transported on board for this purpose, which had to be put ashore when the boat came to stretches of river that required the boat to be hauled. After centuries of decline, several pünten are again in operation in Germany in East Frisia and the Emsland . For example the Leher Pünte ,
15-504: The planned French invasion of Britain in 1759, when a large-number of flat-bottomed boats were prepared by the French to ferry their invasion force across the channel and a number were destroyed during the British Raid on Le Havre . The flat-bottoms are mentioned in the song Heart of Oak written by David Garrick during 1759. This article about a specific civilian ship or boat is
20-410: The boat more stable in calm water, which is good for hunters and anglers . However this design becomes less stable in choppy water. This is because it causes the boat to travel on the water, instead of through it, as a boat with a rounded or V-shaped hull would. Flat hulls are simple to construct, making them popular with boat-building hobbyists . In Britain they came to popular notice during
25-737: The only sail-driven ferry over the navigable Ems, crosses the river near Lehe and, near the Großes Meer in the East Frisian municipality of Südbrookmerland pünten are used at two points along a cycleway. The oldest operational hand-operated ferry in Central Europe is the pünte in Wiltshausen , which crosses the Jümme at its confluence with the Leda . Flat-bottomed boat The flat hull also makes
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