What is a metacentric diagram?

Answer 1

A metacentric diagram is a vessel (ship) stability diagram that shows the relative positions above and below the metacenter of the center of buoyancy and the center of gravity, respectively. Use the link to the Wikipedia article to view one and see how it looks. Follow along and see how it works. When a vessel floats in water, its center of gravity is below its center of buoyancy. That allows gravity to pull down on buoyancy from below the bouyancy to pull up on gravity from above (if it is permitted to say it that way). If the center of buoyancy slips below the center of gravity, the vessel will roll over. Visualize that. And the closer the two centers are, the less stable the vessel. That is, the more prone to rollover it is. The "sweet spot" between the centers of buoyancy and gravity is the metacenter. It's important in evaluating a ship's stability.