<P> There are many other references to the ship in the rest of the series, such as in the episode "Court - Martial", where an investigation was launched into the Minnow's disappearance, which at first determined that the Skipper was responsible, then later concluding that the Skipper wasn't aware that a storm was coming . It is also revealed in this episode that the reason for the Minnow's wreck was that Gilligan threw its anchor overboard without a rope attached to it . </P> <P> A minnow is a very small bait fish, but the TV boat was actually named for Newton Minow, who Gilligan's Island executive producer Sherwood Schwartz believed "ruined television". Minow was chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1961, and is noted for a speech in which he called American television "a vast wasteland". </P> <P> The ship prefix S.S. is used for ships that are powered by steam . However, incidents within the show have at different times implied the Minnow has either a gasoline engine, as in an episode where the Professor is trying to make spark plugs for the engine out of sea shells, or a diesel engine, as in a scene where, after the castaways use home - made glue to repair the boat, all its boards spring off, revealing what appears to be such an engine . Therefore the correct ship prefix should be either M.V. (motor vessel) or M.Y. (motor yacht). </P> <P> The S.S. Minnow II was a successor boat purchased by the Skipper from insurance money for the first in the 1978 made - for - TV movie Rescue from Gilligan's Island . At the end of that movie, the cast and boat are wrecked on the same island, as shown by Gilligan's discovery of a plank with "Minnow I" on it . How they knew to call the first vessel "I" before there was a second is not explained . </P>

What kind of boat was on gilligan island
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