The Boat Puzzle is designed to challenge the player to transport certain pieces to the other side of the ‘river’ while maintaining a certain number of pieces on both sides. A river crossing puzzle is common type of puzzle in which the object is to carry items from one river bank to another, usually in the fewest trips. The difficulty of the puzzle may arise from restrictions on which or how many items can be transported at the same time, or which or how many items may be safely left together. Other instances of this game are the fox, goose and bag of beans puzzle, the jealous husbands problem or cannibals and missionaries. This game is described in terms of the pins being three gentlemen travellers with their three slaves. At no point must the ‘slave’ pins outnumber the others on board the boat or the land and only certain numbers are allowed to row. These racist depictions in games were commonly found and acceptable at the time these games were published. Dated back to 1860, this puzzle consists of an ivory boat on a mahogany board. There are 9 bone pieces ( 6 black, 6 white, 2 blue and 1 red). Design lozenge registration is stamped on the back of the board.