Friends of mine and I were thinking about hiring a houseboat for New Years, which then started a side conversation between a one of those friends and I, as to whether you drive a boat or whether there was another nautical term that we were supposed to be using. She then challenged me (possibly because she is too lazy) to find out what word we were supposed to use. I know that if the boat has a sail, then the term would be to sail the boat, however since a houseboat has a motor, I wondered, do we just steer the boat, or are we considered to be driving the boat? A car has a motor and we also steer a car, however we generally say to people that we drive the car, steering is simply one of the actions we consider to be part of driving, along with accelerating, breaking, watching for road signs, and generally following road rules. Since some of these actions apply to 'driving' a boat as well, I thought that maybe driving was the best description, however I thought it best to consult Google, the all knowing and all powerful.
My quick ten minute Google search turned up very little in the way of hard facts, and gave me other options to consider. Basically, I decided to also check the dictionary definition of Drive. This turned out to be more useful, and decided me on the issue. My Google search highlighted that depending on the whether a boat was powered by a sail, or a paddle or a motor, you would use a different term, such as to sail the sailboat, paddle the canoe, or steer the motorboat. Dictionary.com defined 'drive' as, 'to cause and guide the movement of a vehicle,' and since a sailboat, a canoe and a motorboat could all be considered vehicles, of one description or another, I decided that you can drive them all. You can then choose if you wish to be more specific, depending on whether it has a sail or paddle, to say you are sailing or paddling, that is up to you. Now a sailor may disagree with me, but since I am not a nautical man myself, I am happy with saying that I will drive the houseboat (well perhaps not me specifically, but whoever does the driving).
Check out Dictionary.com for the definition, none of the other sites are reliable enough to be referenced!
