dormitory ship

{{More citations needed|date=August 2024}}

{{Short description|Boat with living quarters}}

File:Postcard SS Stevens and Stevens Center.jpg, formerly a U.S. Navy Windsor-class attack transport, serving as a dormitory ship at Stevens Institute of Technology, Eighth Street Pier, Hoboken, New Jersey, {{circa|1970}}]]

A dormitory ship is a vessel whose primary function is to serve as floating living quarters. Such craft serve as conventional land-based dormitories in all respects except that the living quarters are aboard a floating vessel, most often moored in place near its host facility. It may be seaworthy or not.Dormitory Ship at Merriam-Webster.com

Dormitory ships, regardless of their original design or function, may serve as temporary or permanent housing for refugees, accommodation for academic institutions, and off-shore oil drilling operations.[https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/the-dormitory-ship-transit-accommodating-refugees-rests-at-news-photo/1039788050 The dormitory ship 'Transit', accommodating refugees, rests at the inland port in Hamburg, Germany, 30 December 2014 Getty Images][https://hoboken.pastperfectonline.com/bysearchterm?keyword=S.S.+Stevens SS Stevens at the Hoboken Historical Museum]

When a vessel is used by the military for dedicated housing, as at shipyards, naval bases, and afloat abroad, it is known as a barracks ship.[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28697529 Huge Russian warship fascinates French in Saint-Nazaire]

An analogue to both is the prison ship, which provides a floating space for incarceration, possibly referred to as a brig in the military.

A vessel that contains living quarters as ancillary support to its primary function — such as providing hands-on maritime training at sea — is more appropriately categorized as a training ship.

In 2016 what had once been the world's largest cruiseferry, Ocean Gala, was chosen by the Swedish migration bureau to become temporary housing for some 1,800 of that nation's estimated 160,000 refugees which had arrived in Sweden in just the prior year seeking asylum there.[http://www.allehanda.se/angermanland/harnosand/planerna-pa-asylfartyg-gar-vidare-sa-vill-harnosandspolitikerna-stoppa-etableringen What Was World’s Largest Cruise Liner Faces Unglamorous End As Floating Immigrant Hulk City] This proposal did not come to fruition.