ship's tender

A ship's tender, usually referred to as a tender, is a yacht used to service a ship, generally by transporting people and/or distributes to and from shore or another ship. Smaller boats also have tender and it is popularly known as dinghies.

For a couple of reasons, it is not always wise to tie a ship up at a dock; the weather or the sea might be rough, the time might be small, or the ship too large to fit. In such situation tenders provide the link from ship to shore and it may have a very busy schedule of back-and-forth trips while the ship is in port.

Tenders play double duty on cruise ships by serving as tenders in day-to-day activities and in emergency it act as fully equipped lifeboats. They are commonly carried on davits over the promenade deck, and may at first look appear to be regular lifeboats; but they are usually larger and better-equipped. Current lifeboat tender designs support catamaran models, since they are less likely to roll in the calm to reasonable conditions in which tenders are frequently used. They can carry up to 100 to 150 passengers and two to three crew members.

Pontoon

A pontoon is a flat-bottomed boat or the floats used to support an arrangement on water. It may be simply constructed from closed cylinders such as pipes or barrels or made-up of boxes from metal or concrete. These may be worn to support a simple platform, creating a raft. A raft supporting a house-like structure is single form of houseboat.
Pontoon boats usually run slower and are less likely to cause harm to themselves or other vessels, and are thus less luxurious to insure. As such, they are the most admired vessel style for rental operations. They also present the largest value in terms of capacity to price.

Yacht

The term luxuriousness yacht refers to a very expensive privately owned yacht which is professionally crewed. Also known as a super-yacht or a mega-yacht, a luxury yacht may be moreover a sailing or motor yacht.
This term began to appear at the beginning of the 20th century when wealthy individuals construct large private yachts for personal pleasure. Examples of early lavishness motor yachts include M/Y (motor yacht) Christina O and M/Y Savarona. Early luxury sailing yachts comprise Americas Cup classic J class racers like S/Y (sailing yacht) Endeavour and Sir Thomas Lipton’s S/Y Shamrock. The New York Yacht Club hosted many early luxury sailing yacht events at Newport, Rhode Island, throughout the Gilded Age.
More recently, over the last decade or two, there has been an increase in the number and fame of large private luxury yachts. Luxury yachts are mainly bountiful in the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas, although increasingly luxury yachts are cruising in more remote areas of the world. With the increase in demand for luxury yachts there has been an increase custom boat building companies and yacht contract brokers.