HOY, a small vessel, chiefly used in coasting, or carrying goods to or from a ship, in a road or bay, where the ordinary lighters cannot be managed with safety or convenience.
It would be very difficult to describe precisely the
marks of distinction between this vessel and some others of the same size, which are also rigged in the same manner; because what is called a hoy in one place, would assume the name of a sloop or smack in another; and even the people who navigate these vessels, have, upon examination, very vague ideas of the marks by which they are distinguished from those above mentioned. In Holland, the hoy has two masts; in England, it has but one, where the main-sail is sometimes extended by a boom, and sometimes without it. Upon the whole, it may be defined a small vessel, usually rigged as a sloop, and employed for carrying passengers and luggage from one place to another, particularly on the sea-coast.