{{Short description|Small boat used to ferry supplies to ships moored away from the shore}} {{Ref improve|date=October 2018}} {{Notability|date=September 2022}} thumb|right|Tourist-oriented bumboats on the Singapore River
A '''bumboat''' is a small boat used to ferry supplies to ships moored away from the shore.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bradwell |first=Judy |date=12 March 1979 |title=The private fun of Lodge and Heath |journal=New Zealand Woman's Weekly |pages=24–26}}</ref> The name comes from the combination of the Dutch word for a canoe—"''boomschuit''" ("''boom''" meaning "tree"), and "boat".
In Tobias Smollett's 1748 novel, ''The Adventures of Roderick Random'', a "bumboat woman" conducts business with sailors imprisoned on board a pressing tender moored near the Tower Wharf on the River Thames, London, England. In ''HMS Pinafore'', W. S. Gilbert describes Little Buttercup as a Bumboat Woman.
In Singapore, the term "bumboat" is applied to small water taxis and boats that take tourists on short tours.
== See also == *{{annotated link|Ship's tender}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Wikisource1911Enc|Bumboat}} * [https://www.gsarchive.net/bab_ballads/html/bumboat_woman.html "The Bumboat Woman's Story"]—one of W. S. Gilbert's ''Bab Ballads'' (from the [https://web.archive.org/web/20180720100917/http://gsarchive.net/index.html Gilbert & Sullivan Archive]) * [http://www.ranjit.com/gallery/singapore/Bumboat Singaporean bumboat] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120721232706/http://www.ranjit.com/gallery/singapore/Bumboat |date=2012-07-21 }}—photo by Rajit Vijayan
Category:Boat types
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