Scow

A scow, in the unique sense, is a flat bottomed boat with a blunt bow, frequently used to haul garbage or related bulk freight; cf. barge. The etymology of the word is from Dutch schouwe, denotes such a boat.

Formerly an American design but also used in New Zealand the schooner rigged scow was extensively used for coastal and inland transport from around 1850 through the early 1900s. Scow schooners had a wide, thin hull, and used centerboards, bilge boards or leeboards fairly than a deep keel. The broad hull gave them stability, and the retractable foils permitted them to move yet heavy loads of cargo in waters far too shallow for keelboats to come in. The squared off bow and stern permitted the maximum amount of cargo to be carried in the hull. The least sailing scows were sloop rigged (creating them technically a scow sloop), but otherwise alike in design. The scow sloop ultimately evolved into the inland lake scow, a kind of fast racing boat.