The phrase "a small vessel" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a compact or minor-sized container, boat, or ship in various contexts, such as nautical discussions or scientific descriptions.
Example: "The researchers used a small vessel to collect water samples from the lake."
Alternatives: "a tiny boat" or "a little craft".
Our waiter passed us a small vessel with the dry leaves, which smelled remarkably like cocoa.
Included in the tour is a 20-minute ride in a small vessel known as a bumboat.
"Yesterday we saw a small vessel, a little speed boat on our bows, and we knew it was a little weird," the first mate, Tai Fredricsen, told stuff.co.nz.
His new book is a small vessel, 188 pages long, that began as a series of lectures at the New York Public Library.
From £85 for a small vessel (hannahtounsend.co.uk) In a colour spectrum of more than 1,000 specially developed glazes, Yuta Segawa makes hand-thrown miniature pots.
I think of how such a small vessel was able to hold so many persons and surmount endless perils without harm to a soul.
The unidentified family had been sailing a small vessel west of Monterey Bay, where strong winds, cold water and big swells made for perilous conditions.
"A decision was made to let them go on a small vessel they used for attacking the tanker," the ministry said in a statement.
There they scramble for a few minutes with ropes and vests and clattering metal hatches, and then without ceremony they launch themselves in a small vessel onto the water to face what may come.
In 1883, Heinrich Vogelsang, the 21-year-old agent of a Bremen merchant-adventurer, Adolf Lüderitz, moored a small vessel in a natural harbor then known as Angra Pequena ("Little Bay" in Portuguese).
Cole, one of the Navy's advanced Aegis destroyers, was in the Yemeni port of Aden for refueling when a small vessel laden with explosives detonated alongside it in an apparent terrorist attack.
