Isn’t “She” Beautiful !

More often than not we refer to a ship, boat, yacht, as “She”.
Arguments abound as to why this is so?

One source suggests that a ship “was nearer and dearer to the sailor than anyone except his mother.” Therefore what better reason to call his ship “she”? Another source suggests “the use of ‘she’ for a ship, for example, is at least as old as the 14th century in ‘modern’ English and it was the same in Roman times. This may have been because their ships were dedicated often to goddesses, who were possibly the first figureheads carved on ships’ prows. Even before that, in the language of the ancient Babylonians, ‘boat’ was a feminine word, just as it was in Biblical Hebrew. That means Noah’s ‘ark’ was a feminine word, as boat is today in Italian and Arabic. (The French – typically! – have masculine ships and the Germans have neuter ones.)” Whatever the reason for the feminine application it appears to be the result of a combination of language-development.