So what were the boats for?
No one is sure, and all is speculation, about the boats and "boat pit" found near the Pyramid.
There is no assurance that the boat was buried - as in "covered up", because the condition of the surrounding earth it was found in is the same as core samples of earth in many places around the pyramid; indicating some possibility that it was not buried, other than by time. That feature together with the fact that the base of the pyramid is lower than the base of the "boat" pit, and the clear sign of water erosion on the base of the Sphinx, provides some speculation that the Pyramid was once surrounded by a man made canal or moat running between the plateau the Pyramid sits on and a natural or man made lake that once surrounded the Sphynx.
When funery boats are associated with "tombs" they were not buried outside a "tomb" but placed in them.
There is also speculation that Kufu, having claimed the great Pyramid for himself in his time and long it was built, may have attempted to imitate his funery assemblenge outside the Pyramid - since he knew nothing of the inner chambers and had no way to "move" his funnery works into it.
Had the Pyramid been constructed as a "tomb" then the inner chambers and tunnels would have been decorated. During construction, the sides of the stones that would become the walls of the chambers and tunnels would have been carved by stone masons and Egyptian script and hieroglyphics painted on top of the carved surfaces, telling the life stories, adventures and conquests of the figure "buried" in the "tomb". The great pyramid has none of these attributes and no evidence inside that it ever did have such attributes. The total absence of these features makes it unlike any "tomb" of any noteworthy person in historical Egypt.
Another anomalie of the great Pyramid is that it exhibits two major features that seem contradictory to each other. From mathematical, engineering and astronomical perspectives the great Pyramid is far more advanced than any other human-engineered structure anywhere in Egypt, and yet it is among the oldest man-made structures in Egypt, and particularly older than all other Pyramid structures in Egypt. Usually advanced accomplishments of a culture come later, not sooner.