Ships

[Nashurst]

How many ships and boats are there in the world

[sft42]

LOADS.....this is unfeasibly hard to answer...while I suppose you could trawl through each country that has a port and check with their registers and logs for all Military and Merchant vessels it wouldn't begin to scratch the surface of the true amount when you think about places like Hong Kong which are riddled with craft of all kind.....I'd be suprised if anyone can even put an educated guess together.

[Quizmonster]

Sft is absolutely right. Especially in the case of 'boats', where do you draw the line? Even tiny paddle-boats in public parks are 'boats'!

'Ships' are considered by some to refer mainly to military vessels, so it might just conceivably be possible to establish roughly how many of these there are in the world. I'm sure there must be a 'Jane's' book on the subject that might be worth consulting. (There may even be something similar on merchant vessels.)

[archbishop]

Lloyds Register of Shipping will tell you all the ships registered in any given year plus brief details about them.

[marylou]

sft must be right here. Lloyds wont insure boats on reservoirs and on council lakes etc.

[archbishop]

Marylou - I wasn't talking about insurance.Lloyds Register is totally different.If a ship/boat is registered witha country then it will be listed in Lloyds Register of Shipping.

[marylou]

So are you telling us all that peddloes and rowing boats on lakes are registered too? (cant spell peddle O's!!)