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Water has the power to keep things afloat. If this power is greater than the weight of the ship, the ship will float. But if the ship is too heavy or gets full of water, it will sink. To understand how, we must remember the old Archimedes principle that when a body is immersed in water it is held up by a force equal to the weight of the water it displaces. We call this force buoyancy. Even a metal object, if it is shaped like a wash basin, for example, will be buoyant and float. But if it fills up with water, it will quickly sink. Ship bottoms are shaped so that when a ship leans over, it always becomes level again. The docks of ships act like covers to keep water from getting inside and making the ship too heavy. When it has no cargo a ship floats high in the water. Even when it is fully loaded, a ship will not sink. This is because the load line will be above the water.

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16y ago

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