Tourist-oriented bumboats on the Singapore River
A bumboat is a small boat used to ferry supplies to ships moored away from the shore.[1] 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 Thames River, 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
- Ship's tender – Boat used to service larger ships
References
- ↑ Bradwell, Judy (12 March 1979). "The private fun of Lodge and Heath". New Zealand Woman's Weekly: 24–26.
External links
- "The Bumboat Woman's Story"—one of W. S. Gilbert's Bab Ballads (from the Gilbert & Sullivan Archive)
- Singaporean bumboat Archived 2012-07-21 at the Wayback Machine—photo by Rajit Vijayan
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