The boat is the only still life with 5 cells and was discovered by the JHC group in 1970.[1] It can be thought of as a tub with an extra cell in one of the corners, or a ship with one of the corner cells removed. Like the tub and the ship, it is infinitely extensible (see long boat).
The boat can be hit by a glider to cleanly produce another glider, travelling perpendicular to the direction of the input glider. It is thus a one-time reflector.
In the orientation shown in the infobox, moving the leftmost cell up one cell turns it back into a boat in one generation. This property allows it to be used as a catalyst in certain situations, such as the p21 B-heptomino hassler, p22 lumps of muck hassler, p35 honey farm hassler, the still life form of diuresis, the loaf spin reaction found in the p130 shuttle, and more. See Tutorials/Catalyses for more examples.
A glider hitting a snake or similar still life can produce a boat; another glider in the same lane will cleanly destroy the boat. This is called a boat-bit.
The boat is the fourth most common still life in Achim Flammenkamp's census, being slightly less common than loaf and over four times as common as tub.[2] It is also the sixth most common object on Adam P. Goucher's Catagolue.[3]
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