The novel is written in a style similar to that used by Hodgson in his longer novel The Night Land (1912), with long sentences containing semicolons and numerous prepositional phrases.

While The Night Land is an early example of science fiction, Boats is primarily a survival and adventure story with elements of horror, in the form of monsters.

The subtitle reads: Being an account of their Adventures in the Strange places of the Earth, after the foundering of the good ship Glen Carrig through striking upon a hidden rock in the unknown seas to the Southward.

Yet, because there was the beginning of hope within our hearts, we pulled wearily towards it, and thus, in about an hour, discovered it to be indeed the coast of some flat country.The narrator calls this dismal, muddy place the "land of lonesomeness."

They find troubling notes left by a female passenger aboard the ship, one of which makes reference to a nearby spring.

The men locate the spring, but after filling their water containers, they discover horrifying plants that have taken on human shapes, and which produce blood-curdling cries.

While the men explore, young seaman Job remains in the boat, and is attacked by a giant "devil-fish" (an enormous octopus).

The men manage to establish contact with the crew using words written on large pieces of canvas, and begin planning strategies to rescue the people aboard.

The men are attacked repeatedly by hideous, foul-smelling, tentacled humanoid creatures that swarm over the island in the dark; these can only be kept at bay with huge bonfires.

Coastal life-saving operations historically could use a small mortar (later known as a "Lyle gun") to fire a projectile carrying a light rope, which was carefully pre-coiled in a basket to avoid fouling.

The bo'sun assents, and the men build the elaborate crossbow, composed of a number of smaller bows that can be used together to shoot a single arrow.

All is not lost, though, because another crew member manages to build a large box kite which succeeds in carrying a line to the ship on the first attempt.

He discovers that there are several women aboard: the captain's wife, who is mad; the "buxom woman" who is now the cook, and the young and eligible Mistress Madison.

But they are not out of the weeds yet: the bo'sun sends a note indicating that he has doubts about the state of the rope, which has frayed slightly, and insists that it is too dangerous for the narrator to return the way he came.

He marries Mistress Madison, gives gifts to the crew members, and provides a place for the bo'sun, who is now his close friend, to live upon his estate.

Here is an example of one of his longer sentences: Yet, to please the fellow, I put my hand upon the line, which we had made fast in the evening to a large piece of rock, and so, immediately, I discovered that something was pulling upon it, hauling and then slackening, so that it occurred to me that the people in the vessel might be indeed wishful to send us some message, and at that, to make sure, I ran to the nearest fire, and, lighting a tuft of weed, waved it thrice; but there came not any answering signal from those in the ship, and at that I went back to feel at the rope, to assure myself that it had not been the pluck of the wind upon it; but I found that it was something very different from the wind, something that plucked with all the sharpness of a hooked fish, only that it had been a mighty great fish to have given such tugs, and so I knew that some vile thing out in the darkness of the weed was fast to the rope, and at this there came the fear that it might break it, and then a second thought that something might be climbing up to us along the rope, and so I bade the big seaman stand ready with his great cutlass, whilst I ran and waked the bo'sun.Hodgson also occasionally uses alliteration: Thus we had her sparred, all but a bowsprit and jibboom; yet this we managed by making a stumpy, spike bowsprit from one of the smaller spars which they had used to shore up the superstructure, and because we feared that it lacked strength to bear the strain of our fore and aft stays, we took down two hawsers from the fore, passing them in through the hawse-holes and setting them up there.Hodgson also shows a certain playfulness of style.

The latter were placed first upon the mud, and the ladder laid upon them; by which means we were enabled to pass up to the top of the bank without contact with the mud.Hodgson describes physical artefacts, such as the hardware about a boat, in great detail: ...we carried all the loose woodwork of the boat into the tent, emptying the lockers of their contents, which included some oakum, a small boat's hatchet, a coil of one-and-a-half-inch hemp line, a good saw, an empty, colza-oil tin, a bag of copper nails, some bolts and washers, two fishing-lines, three spare tholes, a three-pronged grain without the shaft, two balls of spun yarn, three hanks of roping-twine, a piece of canvas with four roping-needles stuck in it, the boat's lamp, a spare plug, and a roll of light duck for making boat's sails.Horrible creatures are given very little detail, although the narrator's reaction is described at length: Now it is scarcely possible to convey the extraordinary disgust which the sight of these human slugs bred in me; nor, could I, do I think I would; for were I successful, then would others be like to retch even as I did, the spasm coming on without premonition, and born of very horror.

At that, I could have screamed, had I been in less terror; for the great eyes, so big as crown pieces, the bill like to an inverted parrot's, and the slug-like undulating of its white and slimy body, bred in me the dumbness of one mortally stricken.Very few words in the text are devoted to describing the characters.

H. P. Lovecraft, in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature", has the following to say about the novel: In The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907) we are shown a variety of malign marvels and accursed unknown lands as encountered by the survivors of a sunken ship.

The brooding menace in the earlier parts of the book is impossible to surpass, though a letdown in the direction of ordinary romance and adventure occurs toward the end.