Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on February 22, 2006 at 12:48:33 from 80.3.128.6 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: Thames wherry posted by Jeremy Kriewaldt on February 22, 2006 at 06:18:31:
You simply cannot assume that boats called in one place by a generic name are in any way similar to boats called by the same name in other places, often quite close together.
The 'Dictionary of the World's Watercraft' defines 6 very different types of vessels as wherries, with a couple of dozen very similar names (such as houari) for yet more types. Some carry passengers, some cargo, some are decked, some open. In New England even dugout canoes were once called wherries.
It applies to other names of boat types as well. There are 13 different definitions of punt in the Dictionary, with another page of German and Dutch boats called almost the same thing. They are not just the flat bottomed things that you pole along through Cambridge (and that other place), most are working boats - Swallow herself might well have been called 'the punt' by the fishermen who probably were her first owners.