With just four characters, Crane effectively portrays both camaraderie and individuality. The captain, the oiler, the cook, and the correspondent form a microcosm where the men share no true common bonds. Their ways of making a living, their educational backgrounds, and their social standings appear to separate them. However, Crane illustrates a strong sense of unity among them. In Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893; see separate entry), Crane argues that societal issues like poverty and ignorance persist because few people genuinely care for others. In "The Open Boat," he shows that when people collaborate, they can overcome great challenges, provided they do not succumb to their personal feelings and emotions.

The captain, though injured and unable to help with rowing, contributes to the common good by providing navigational guidance and other directives. He also ensures that the water bottle is safeguarded from being washed overboard, contaminated by salt water, or entirely consumed. The men understand that the captain's role is the most demanding. He must chart a course, make safety decisions, and determine how to best utilize the men's efforts. Their obedience to him is given willingly. By mutual consent, the captain acts as both a leader and a paternal figure. Crane notes that even though the captain is forced to remain still, he never appears to sleep. His vigilance and care persist throughout the night.

The oiler handles the physical navigation of the dinghy, performing the second most skilled task. Although he takes turns rowing, his primary responsibility is to steer using a short stick as a rudder. The oiler takes pleasure in having a degree of control over the dinghy's direction. This control is reflected in his three mild outbursts of temper. He is the only character in the story who directly reprimands someone. He scolds the cook for talking about food and later expresses mild annoyance about the cook or the correspondent not doing their fair share of rowing. While his irritability is minor and never causes discord, Crane provides us with a glimpse into his character.

When the cook selfishly indulges his cravings by talking about unattainable food, the oiler, in turn, selfishly succumbs to his desire to bark orders. The cook's focus on the lack of food stirs up despair within the group, while the oiler's bad temper is equally disheartening. His complaints about the cook and correspondent not sharing the rowing duties are baseless. Crane does not intend to depict the oiler as a villain but rather as a divisive force in the struggle for the greater good of humanity. Crane wants us to see that the cook's indulgence in wishful thinking and false hopes is also harmful. Despite these issues, the men manage to set aside their minor differences to concentrate on the bigger problem.

The captain's silence during these outbursts is noteworthy as it shows his understanding that responding to trivial matters gives them undue importance. He recognizes that a leader's duty is to stay focused on the real challenges.

The oiler is the only one in the group given a name, Billy, perhaps to emphasize his representation of humanity. Tragically, Billy is the only one who dies; he perishes within sight of land and rescue after being struck by the dinghy. The combined force of incoming waves and the strong undertow along the Florida coast would cause the dinghy to swamp and sink if the men stayed in it or flip if they left it. The captain advises everyone to jump far from the dinghy; Billy doesn't manage to get clear. Nature, in the form of physical laws, defeats Billy. However, true to Crane's final understanding of nature, the same dinghy that kills the oiler saves the injured captain. The captain is able to lean on and float with the dinghy after it flips.

Like the correspondent, the cook performs manual labor. These two men take turns rowing the boat and bailing water; they have no say in direction or navigation, nor do they wish to. However, their personalities are quite different. The cook tends to indulge in wishful thinking and shares his dreams, even when both are detrimental to the common good. He dreams of pies and expresses these fantasies aloud. He imagines a rescue and expends much of his and the other men's emotional energy on this imagined rescue. Yet, the cook is not malicious, just thoughtless. He is portrayed as someone who lives on the surface of life and enjoys it.

In contrast, the correspondent is portrayed as introspective. The third-person narrator delves into the correspondent's thoughts and actions, depicting him as someone who analyzes various issues and tries to grasp a broader perspective. However, we never get to know the correspondent on a personal level. We are unaware of what kind of correspondent he is, why he was on the ship, whether he is married, or any other personal details. Revealing these details would undermine the allegory of the sea of life. The correspondent is merely an intense, analytical member of the great brotherhood. Despite the men's differing personalities, these distinctions are insignificant. What matters is the merging and harmonizing of their personalities to create a brotherhood and a universe.

Billie
See Oiler

Captain
The injured captain is unable to assist with rowing the lifeboat. Having lost his ship, he feels more despondent and disheartened than the other characters. Despite his own grief, he believes it is his responsibility to lead the men to safety. He makes decisions for the crew and offers encouraging words to those rowing. At one point, the captain appears the least hopeful about their chances of survival. However, he only briefly expresses this pessimism before quickly reassuring the men, as if "soothing his children," by saying, "we'll get ashore all right." Ultimately, he survives by clinging to the overturned boat as it is carried into shallow water by the surf. Even then, he waves away a rescuer and directs them to help the correspondent first.

Cook
The cook is described as overweight and sloppily dressed. While he does not help with rowing, he diligently bails seawater out of the boat. He is the most talkative of the four men and remains unwaveringly confident that they will be rescued. When they finally spot the shore and a building, he repeatedly comments on how odd it is that the "crew" of what he imagines is a life-saving station has not noticed them and sent out a rescue boat. He continues this even after it becomes clear that the building is abandoned and no one has seen them. He is the only one of the four men wearing a life jacket. Highlighting the randomness of the natural disaster that has befallen the four diverse men, the unfit cook is one of the three survivors, while the oiler, a strong and skilled seaman, drowns in the surf just off shore.

Correspondent
The character of the correspondent is autobiographical. Crane himself was shipwrecked off the Florida coast while working as a war correspondent. The correspondent is the only character whose thoughts are directly shared with the reader. As the story unfolds, the absurdity of the situation deeply affects him. He realizes that despite all his efforts, he might still drown, leading him to ponder the disheartening idea that nature is indifferent to his fate. His sadness causes him to envision his own death as similar to that of a French soldier in a poem who dies, unmourned, far from home. In the end, the correspondent survives, largely due to sheer luck: a large wave carries him into shallow water near the land.

Oiler
Billie, the oiler, is the sole character in the story who is named, a detail often noted by critics. Despite being the most physically capable and determined to survive, he is the only one who doesn't make it through the ordeal. As the strongest rower, Billie exerts himself the most when swimming to shore after the boat capsizes in the surf. However, his efforts are in vain—he drowns in the shallow water near the shore, while the other characters are saved seemingly by random chance.