Motorboat, also called Powerboat, a relatively small watercraft propelled by an internal-combustion or electric engine. Motorboats range in size from miniature craft designed to carry one person to seagoing vessels of 100 feet (30 m) or more. Most motorboats, however, have space for six passengers or fewer. Motorboats are used recreationally for traveling on water (cruising) and for the enjoyment of such sports as fishing, duck hunting, swimming, skin diving, and water skiing. In sport they are used for racing and in piloting and navigation contests.
The two most common types of motorboats are classified by the manner in which the engine is installed. An inboard motorboat has the engine permanently mounted within the hull, with the drive shaft passing through the hull. An outboard motorboat has a portable, detachable motor, incorporating drive shaft and propeller, that is clamped or bolted to the stern or in a well within the hull. The motorboat engine usually turns a propeller acting against the water. However, for shallow water there are such variations as the paddle wheel, airscrew, and water jet pump. The two main types of hulls used on motorboats are displacement hulls, which push through the water; and planing hulls, which skim across the water’s surface. The displacement hull has a V-shaped or round bottom, a relatively deep draft, a narrow width relative to its length, a sharp bow, and a narrow stern. The planing hull, by contrast, has a flat bottom that at higher speeds rises to the surface and skims across the water, thus reducing the friction and resistance between hull and water.
Motorboats come in many types. The outboard runabout, or motor launch, is a fairly small open boat with seats running laterally across the width of the craft and occasionally with decking over the bow area. Inboard runabouts are usually a bit larger and are either open or have a removable shelter top. Cruisers, or cabin cruisers, are equipped with sleeping and cooking facilities in an enclosed cabin for persons to live aboard them. Smaller cruisers may use outboard motors, but the larger types usually have inboard engines. An inboard cruiser that is longer than 15 m (50 feet) is usually called a motor yacht; this type of boat is usually designed for operation in less protected waters, and frequently navigates coastal oceanic routes.
Working motorboats include ferries, fishing boats, motor barges, tugs, coasters, passenger boats, police and harbour officials’ launches, fuel and water boats, fire-fighting craft, and many others. Various types of small naval craft can also be regarded motorboats. Hydroplanes are motorboats built to skim over the surface with only a minimum of the hull in contact with the water at high speeds. An auxiliary sailboat is basically designed as a sailing craft but is powered with an internal-combustion engine for use in adverse weather conditions and for maneuvering in confined spaces. The motor sailer, by contrast, is designed mainly to operate as a motorboat but is equipped with sail for auxiliary power.
Electric and internal-combustion engines were used experimentally in the second half of the 19th century in Germany, France, and Britain, one of the earliest of the latter kind of engine being designed by Gottlieb Daimler in the late 1880s. The use of motorboats became increasingly popular in Europe and North America after the turn of the century, mainly with motors adapted from automobile engines. In 1903 Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) donated to the Royal Motor Yacht Club the British International Trophy for Motor Boats, popularly called the Harmsworth Cup, which has been intermittently contested for by international teams since that year. In 1904 the American Power Boat Association (founded 1903) instituted the Gold Cup, which later became one of a series of races (for hydroplanes from 1911) leading to a national championship. By 1910 manufacturers of outboard motors, led by Evinrude, were producing motors that could easily be detached from one boat, tuned, transported, and attached to another, thus making both sporting and recreational motorboating more economical and easier. The shift from the early displacement hulls to planing hulls increased speed spectacularly, as did new engine types. After World War II the materials for hulls shifted from wood to metals to fibreglass, the latter being used particularly where speed was wanted. The use of motorboats for recreational and sport purposes underwent a spectacular expansion in the second half of the 20th century.
The average speed of the winning boat for the first Harmsworth Cup race in 1903 was 31.4 km per hour (19.5 miles per hour) and that for the first Gold Cup race winner was 37.9 km/h (23.6 miles/h). Sir Malcolm Campbell of England held the one-mile (1.6-kilometre) water speed record of 141.74 miles/h (228.6 km/h) with his hydroplane Bluebird II from 1939 to 1950, when the hydroplane Slo-Mo-Shun IV took the record with an average 160.323 miles/h (257.960 km/h) at Seattle, Wash. Miss U.S. I broke the 200-mile per hour barrier in 1962 with an average speed of 200.419 miles/h (322.53 km/h) at Guntersville, Ala. In 1955 Donald Malcolm Campbell, son of Sir Malcolm, became the first man to successfully pilot a jet-propelled boat over a timed course, with a mark of 202.32 miles/h (325.53 km/h). Campbell raised his record in 1959 to 260.35 miles/h (418.90 km/h), but in 1967 the Hustler raised the speed record to 285.213 miles/h (458.901 km/h) at Guntersville. Ken Warby set a straightaway record of 319.627 miles/h (514.39 km/h) in 1978 with the Spirit of Australia.
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Outboard craft lagged significantly behind inboard boats in speed, and not until 1954 was Massimo Leto di Priolo of Italy able to attain a speed of 100.36 miles/h (161.48 km/h) over a one-mile run. Bert Ross, Jr., raised that to 115.547 miles/h (185.915 km/h) at Seattle in 1960.
The Union of International Motorboating was founded in 1922 to serve as a clearinghouse for European (and currently world) racing records. The major divisions in motorboat competition are between various types of inboard and outboard craft. Each division has a number of classes, depending mostly on piston displacement. Many hundreds of regattas and races are held annually under the auspices of local and national groups, mostly over closed courses. Some races, such as the Mississippi Marathon and the Six Heures de Paris, are endurance contests. (In a separate division, pleasure boats compete in marathons of 50 to more than 250 miles [80 to 400 km]). The Union of International Motorboating awards a world championship based on points accrued by the first six finishers in such races as the Wills International in England, the Miami-Nassau Race from Florida to the Bahamas, and the Naples Trophy and the Viareggio in Italy.
Many yacht clubs hold predicted log races in which navigational skill rather than speed is the basis for scoring. The skipper of a boat predicts the exact time he will pass specified points on a predetermined course, which he traverses without a watch, adjusting his speed in accordance with variations of wind, tide, and current. The skipper coming closest to his prediction wins.
Ocean and offshore racing became popular only in the second half of the 20th century. A race from Florida to the Bahamas was first held in 1959, and from 1961 the Daily Express of London has held a race from Cowes on the Isle of Wight to Torquay in Devonshire; after 1969 the length of the race was doubled by returning to Cowes. The Daily Telegraph race around Great Britain was inaugurated in 1969, and in 1972 the longest British race was introduced, from London to Monte Carlo on the Mediterranean.