User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail Chapter 543: Hearts Connected/@comment-1359322-20170708013330/@comment-7418318-20170708070931

The way I see it, he didn't eat the boat while he was plunging toward it because he was trying (and failing) to stay airborne which didn't leave him enough attention to eat the magic and once he hit the boat, he was too busy being sick to eat anything.