About these boat coloring pages
Boat coloring pages take kids from the bathtub to the open sea. Our free printable boat pages include little sailboats with triangle sails, rowboats on a quiet lake, tugboats pushing big ships, fishing boats with nets, ferries, canoes, friendly pirate ships with treasure chests and little round submarines exploring the ocean floor with fish all around. Easy pages show one boat on a few simple waves with thick lines; detailed pages have harbors, lighthouses, islands and whole fleets of ships.
Every page prints on US Letter or A4 paper, free, with no account and no watermark, and you can color any page online with a tap. Boats are full of things to talk about while you color: why a heavy ship floats, how a sail catches the wind, what a captain calls the left and right side of a boat and how a submarine goes down and comes back up.
Why kids love coloring boats
A boat page is two pictures in one: the boat and the water. Kids can make the sea calm and blue, stormy and grey or bright turquoise like a tropical beach, and fill it with fish, dolphins, seagulls and floating ducks. Sails and flags are big, simple shapes that are easy to fill with stripes, stars or any pattern a child likes.
Pirate ships and submarines add adventure. Children can draw a treasure map, design their own pirate flag or invent the sea creatures a submarine meets deep down. Younger kids practice wavy lines and triangles, while older kids learn sailing words, the parts of a ship and a little about how things float and sink.
Boats and ships you will find here
Every boat has a job. Ask your child to match each one to what it does, then pick a page to color.
Boats also make a good sorting game: which ones use wind, which use people power and which use an engine? Sailboats use the wind, rowboats and canoes use arms and paddles, and tugboats, ferries and fishing boats use motors. Submarines are in a group of their own, because they travel under the water instead of on top.
- Sailboat: one or more sails catch the wind and push the boat across the water
- Rowboat and canoe: moved by people pulling oars or paddles
- Tugboat: small and very strong, it pushes and pulls big ships into the harbor
- Fishing boat: nets and lines for catching fish
- Pirate ship: tall masts, many sails, a wheel to steer and a skull-and-crossbones flag
- Submarine: a closed boat that can dive under the water and look up through a periscope
Boat facts to share while you color
- A ship floats because it pushes aside a weight of water equal to its own weight, which is why even huge steel ships do not sink.
- On a boat, the left side is called port and the right side is called starboard when you face the front.
- The front of a boat is the bow and the back is the stern.
- Boat speed is measured in knots. One knot is one nautical mile per hour, a little faster than one regular mile per hour.
- A submarine dives by filling tanks with seawater and rises again by blowing the water out with air.
- A periscope uses mirrors or prisms so a submarine crew can see above the water while staying below the surface.
- A sailboat cannot sail straight into the wind, so it zigzags back and forth at an angle, which sailors call tacking.
- The skull-and-crossbones pirate flag is often called the Jolly Roger.
Which boat page for which age
- Toddlers (2–3)
- Easy pages with one sailboat or a little tugboat on a few big waves. Color the water blue together and count the sails.
- Preschool (3–5)
- Easy and Medium pages with a boat, a sun, a fish or a lighthouse. Find triangles in the sails and name the colors of the sea and sky.
- Kids (5–10)
- Medium pages with pirate ships, harbors and submarines among fish. Design a flag, draw a treasure map or add sea creatures.
- Teens and adults
- Detailed pages with tall ships, rigging, wooden planks and coastal towns. Try wood grain, rippling reflections and sunset water.
Coloring tips and color ideas
- Color the water with two or three blues, darker near the bottom of the page and lighter near the horizon.
- Leave thin white lines on the waves so the sea looks like it is sparkling in the sun.
- Wooden boats and pirate ships look real with brown planks; use a darker brown for the lines between them.
- Make sails white, cream or one bold color with stripes, and shade one side lightly so they look full of wind.
- For a submarine scene, make the water deep blue or green and leave a pale beam of light from the front lamp.
- Color the boat first and the water last so the colors do not run into each other.
Ideas for home, school and parties
- Pirate party: give each guest a pirate ship page, let them design their own flag and hide a "treasure" for the best ship name.
- Float or sink: color a boat, then test toys in a tub of water and talk about why some float and others sink.
- Beach or lake trip: print a few boat pages before a vacation by the water and look for the same kinds of boats in the harbor.
- Sailing words: color a ship and label the bow, stern, port, starboard, mast and sail.
- Make your captain a page: turn a photo of your child in a canoe, on a ferry or in a cardboard pirate ship into a coloring page. Upload it and Coloriki traces it in seconds.
How to print boat coloring pages
- Open the page you like and press Print it. A PDF opens, sized for US Letter; the A4 PDF is next to it.
- In the print window choose "Fit to page" or 100% scale, and plain white paper. Thicker paper (100 to 120 gsm) is better for markers and paint.
- Print a few copies: kids like to try different colors on the same picture.
- Prefer screens? Press Color it online and color with a tap on a phone, tablet or computer.