ELi5: When giant ships like the Titanic sink is there a whirlpool effect that can drag people under when the ship fills with water? Can someone please explain why or why not this would happen?
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It’s a real effect, but the actual magnitude will depend a lot on many factors (where you are relative to the ship, how big it is, how fast it’s sinking, shape, orientation, etc.).
Basically, a sinking ship is a big blunt object moving through the water. It happens to be moving down but that’s not particularly important. What is important is that, in order for the ship to move, water has to fill in behind it. This means that, on the backside of any object moving through water, there has to be some flow inwards and *towards* the center of the object to fill in the volume vacated by the moving ship. For a blunt shape, like a ball or a ship going straight down, you’re also going to have a recirculation zone behind it (check out this picture of a ball in a flow: [Solved: Figure 2: The Flow Around A Sphere On A Stick. Que… | Chegg.com](https://www.chegg.com/homework-help/questions-and-answers/figure-2-flow-around-sphere-stick-question-2-drag-sphere-25-fast-following-spheres-travel–q46536877) )
If you get into that current that’s rushing in towards the center or into the recirculation zone, there could be a very large drag force on you tending to pull you towards the ship.
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