A boat ride in Minecraft is quite safe. With one exception, however, as anyone who misjudges the distance by one block will die.
Minecraft has changed quite a bit over the years, many bugs have been fixed and several new features have been added to the game. Yet, from time to time, you might encounter bugs or hidden quirks where players are unsure whether they are intentional or a secret. For example, boats can protect you from fall damage quite reliably – except at a very specific height.
That’s why boats are useful: Boats serve multiple purposes in Minecraft. They can not only be used for a quick journey across waters but can also be used to transport NPCs like villagers, animals, or even monsters. However, a rather rare use is the protection against fall damage.
If someone gets into a boat – this can also be done on open ground without water – they can slide down cliffs. This still works perfectly in the current Patch 1.16. Fall damage is then avoided. Even at dizzying heights, the character does not die but lands safely with their boat on the ground.
With one single exception.
What is this exception? In the Minecraft subreddit, user ryancflam published a short video showing various fall heights with the boat. At a distance of 48 blocks, everything is fine and the character survives. The same happens at a height of 50 blocks. However, at exactly 49 blocks, the boat breaks and the character suffers full fall damage – which in most cases leads to immediate death. This video shows it:
Can someone explain why this is the case? from r/Minecraft
Why is this so? Users are speculating about this. It is probably just a curious bug that has been lurking in the Minecraft code for years. The fact that exactly this – and only this – height is lethal seems to have no deeper meaning or reason.
A possible – definitely very plausible – solution has been presented by the user TriangularSheep. They wrote:
It’s like this because you are at a height of 49 blocks, and most Minecraft blocks are cubes, and every cube has square sides, and the square root of 49 is 7.
How many different heights did you die with the boat in the video? At exactly one, and 7-1=6.
You tried it from three different heights, so if we take the number 6 and use it three times, we get 666, the number of the beast.
And the beast wants your soul.
And that’s exactly why you die in a boat at a height of 49 blocks.
The explanation was showered with upvotes and awards and seems to satisfy most players as a solution.
Do you also use boats in this way? Or is this a new method to troll friends with a “49-block height”? Or do you prefer to swear by the craziest staircase there is?
