1.9 added huge improvements to boats. Easily controlled, not crashing, and best of all, space for two. What I'm about to paste is material mostly from a post on /r/minecraftsuggestions I made, but I want to see the opinions of the wider audience of this sub.

With boats currently, you have two slots to put mobs in. If you were alone, I think you should have some kind of way to use that extra space. I propose, that if you shift right click with a chest, a crafting table, a furnace, or a dispenser, you can place them in your boat.

If you press the c key while in a boat, the GUI for the item in your boat pops up. This is because you can't rotate 360 in boats to right click on your desired tool.

The crafting table acts as normal.

The chest allows you to have storage equal to a single chest.

The furnace only has a slot for fuel, because, as long as fuel is in your boat, it will move 25% faster, and your hunger will deplete 50% slower while moving. The fuel will not burn if you are still.

The dispenser is a bit different. You can place it directionaly, behind you, to your left, or to your right. Pressing c would bring up a 2×2 dispenser inventory, and pressing space in your boat would fire a shot with an angle slightly upwards (10-15 degrees) and a cooldown of one second.

To remove the item, break the boat and everything will drop.