1,577 articles
Bay-class landing ship
The Bay-class landing ship is a class of four amphibious landing ships of the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary, built in the early 2000s to replace older Landing Ship Logistic vessels.
Bayern-class battleship
The Bayern class was a class of four dreadnought battleships of the Imperial German Navy, armed with 38 cm guns and completed during the First World War.
Bayesian (yacht)
Bayesian was a 56-meter British-flagged sailing superyacht built by Perini Navi in 2008. She sank off Porticello, Sicily, in August 2024, killing seven, including tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch.
Bayraktar-class tank landing ship
The Bayraktar class is a class of two tank landing ships of the Turkish Navy, TCG Bayraktar and TCG Sancaktar, built in Istanbul and commissioned in 2017 and 2018.
BC Ferries
BC Ferries is the ferry operator linking Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and mainland British Columbia. Founded in 1960 as a government service, it became the private British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. in 2003.
BCT (Gdańsk)
BCT, or Baltic Container Terminal (Bałtycki Terminal Kontenerowy), is a container terminal in the Port of Gdynia, Poland, not Gdańsk, owned by ICTSI since 2003.
Beam (nautical)
The beam, also known as ship beam, is the width of a ship measured from one side of the hull to the other, one of a vessel's principal dimensions.
Bénéteau
Bénéteau is a French boatbuilding brand founded in 1884 by Benjamin Bénéteau at Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, France, and now the flagship name of Groupe Beneteau, one of the world's largest builders of sailing yachts and powerboats.
Benham-class destroyer
The Benham class was a class of ten United States Navy destroyers commissioned in 1939, the last US destroyer class built to the 1,500-ton treaty limit.
Bering and Chirikov expedition
The Bering and Chirikov expedition was the 1741 voyage of the ships St. Peter and St. Paul that made a European sighting and landing on Alaska.
Bernard C. Webber
Bernard Challen Webber, also known as Bernie Webber, was a US Coast Guard boatswain's mate who rescued 32 crewmen from the tanker Pendleton off Chatham, Massachusetts, in 1952.
Bilge keel
A bilge keel is a long, narrow fin fitted at the turn of a ship's hull to reduce rolling, first fitted on the steamer Parisian in 1880.
Birchbark canoe
A birchbark canoe is a light watercraft of birch bark sewn over a cedar frame, developed by Indigenous peoples of North America and adopted by fur traders.
Bismarck-class battleship
The Bismarck class was a pair of German battleships, Bismarck and Tirpitz, built in the late 1930s; Bismarck sank the British battlecruiser Hood in May 1941.
Black Pearl (yacht)
Black Pearl is a 106.7-meter, three-masted sailing yacht built by the Dutch shipyard Oceanco, delivered in 2018 as the largest sailing yacht in the world.
Black Ships (黒船)
Black Ships (黒船) were Western vessels that arrived in Japan in 1853, leading to the Treaty of Kanagawa and the end of Japan's national seclusion policy.
Blackbirding
Blackbirding was the 19th- and early-20th-century practice of recruiting Pacific Islanders, often by kidnapping or coercion, as indentured plantation laborers, chiefly in Queensland, Australia, from 1863 to 1906.
Blessing of the Fleet
The Blessing of the Fleet is an annual ceremony, rooted in Catholic fishing communities, in which a priest blesses fishing boats and crews for a safe, bountiful season.
Block construction (shipbuilding)
Block construction is a shipbuilding method in which a ship is divided into prefabricated structural blocks, joined on a dock or slipway to form the hull.
Blue (yacht)
Blue is a 160-meter motor yacht delivered in 2022 by the German shipyard Lürssen, ranked fifth-longest in the world at delivery and linked to Sheikh Mansour.
Blue Riband
The Blue Riband of the Atlantic was an unofficial award for the passenger liner with the fastest average speed on a transatlantic crossing, first recorded in 1838.
Bluebelle (ship)
Bluebelle was a 60-foot charter ketch based in Fort Lauderdale that sank in the Bahamas in November 1961 after her skipper, Julian Harvey, killed the Duperrault family; 11-year-old Terry Jo Duperrault survived.
Boardwalk (yacht)
Boardwalk is a 117-meter motor superyacht built by German shipyard Lürssen, delivered in May 2026 to American businessman Tilman Fertitta, owner of Landry's and the Houston Rockets.
Boat
A boat is a watercraft smaller than a ship that carries people or goods across water, classically an open craft propelled by oars or sails, and among humanity's oldest technologies.
Boat building
Boat building, also known as boat construction, is the craft and industry of constructing hulls and fittings of small watercraft, in wood historically and in fiberglass and metal today.
Boating
Boating: recreational use of small watercraft (sailboats, powerboats, personal watercraft, canoes, kayaks). Distinguished by USCG 2024 statistics (556 deaths, 4.8 per 100,000 vessels), Canadian Pleasure Craft Licence rules, and right-of-way navigation rules.
Boatswain
The boatswain, often spelled bosun or bo'sun, is the senior deck rating aboard a ship, foreman of the deck crew and responsible for rigging, anchors, and deck equipment.
Boatswain's mate (United States Navy)
Boatswain's mate (BM) is an enlisted rating of the United States Navy whose members supervise ship handling, anchoring, underway replenishment, rigging, and small boat operations.
Borei-class submarine
The Borei class, also called the Yuriy Dolgorukiy class, is a series of nuclear-powered Russian ballistic missile submarines built for the Russian Navy, each armed with 16 Bulava SLBMs.
Bow flare
Bow flare is the outward slope of a ship's hull above the waterline at the bow, which deflects waves and spray away from the forward deck.