My husband just bought a new boat.
Does he use it to catch fish in the sea or on a lake or river?
It is a fishing boat.
There are currently over four million commercial fishing boats!
That's a lot of boats out there.
Yes, suprising considering that before the 1950's, there was little standardisation of fishing boats.
Why not? That wasn't too long ago.
Well, traditionally boats were built of wood, but now not so much because wood isn't durable.
That makes sense I guess.
majority of which were undecked, and those small vessels dominated in all regions. Conversely, the largest vessels, classified as those with LOA greater than 24 m made up about 2 percent of the total fleet.
About 1.3 million of these are decked vessels with enclosed areas. Nearly all of these decked vessels are mechanised, and 40,000 of them are over 100 tons. At the other extreme, two-thirds (1.8 million) of the undecked boats are traditional craft of various types, powered only by sail and oars
Traditional fishing boat
Traditionally, many different kinds of boats have been used as fishing boats to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Even today, many traditional fishing boats are still in use. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), at the end of 2004, the world fishing fleet consisted of about 4 million vessels, of which 2.7 million were undecked (open) boats. While nearly all decked vessels were mechanised, only one-third of the undecked fishing