🚤 Boats
🚤 Hull
A boat's main body/shell — displaces water to keep it afloat and shapes how it handles at speed.
What it actually does
The hull is the boat's body and the single biggest factor in how it behaves on water. Its shape decides how the boat rides, how it turns, how it handles chop, and how stable it is at speed — far more than the power that drives it.
In practice
The main families are the mono-hull, which is simple and handles rough water well; the catamaran, which rides on two sponsons with air underneath for very high speed on calm water; and the hydroplane, which is designed to ride on as little wetted surface as possible.
Worth knowing
Match the hull to the water you actually have. A cat is spectacular on a still lake and difficult on a windy one, where a mono simply gets on with it.