We’ve all seen the video of the battleship hitting that massive wave, but how can ships take that much of a beating/that much water and stay afloat and in one piece? Smaller boats for recreational use would almost all sink if they were to stuff their bow on a proportionately sized wave so what’s the difference?
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Because it’s buoyant, even if it goes underwater momentarily it’ll pop back up. What sinks the boat is if it takes on water (through hatches, exhaust vents, etc). So boats like the battleship have deck hatches that seal watertight. The water just slides right off the bow. Smaller boats that aren’t built for such rough conditions can’t seal up that well so it’s easier for them to take on water and sink. Boats can also capsize and roll upside down, but there’s a ton of weight (ballast) in the bottom of the boat to make that very difficult. If a boat sinks it’s more likely due to a hull breach that causes it to take on a ton of water very quickly.
So, the idea here is very simple and it’s called Archimedes’ principle. Since you are just 5, you can just assume this is a magic which works all the time :
“Upward force applied on the ship (or object) by the water (or any liquid) is equal to the weight of the water displaced.”
Too technical ?
Let’s take an example:
You are a boat and you went into ocean ( swimming pool ). Now, when you entered ocean you displaced some water because you also need some space right ?
Let’s say that water weighs 10 kg ( although weight and force is taken in newton but for simplicity I’ll go with kilograms ) so, you would get a 10kg equivalent push from the water below you.
You can just assume that if your weight is 50 kg then you’ll just feel 50-10 = 40kgs.
If you can somehow displace 50 kgs of water then your weight will be balanced by the force applied by water below you and you will float (50 – 50 = 0)
When ships are designed, engineers do take care of what level of stress (or force) that can be applied on the bow or stern so, that ship still follows the principle and displaces enough water to keep ship floating.
The bow is shapped to deflect most of the energy of the wave to the sides rather than hitting the wave square on and also the bow is one of the strongest and most reinforced part of the ship.
Ocean-going ships have specially reinfoced bow areas made of steel. Underneath the skin of a ships bow are a LOT of reinforcing steel beams, and the skin itself is sometimes made of thicker steel than the rest of the hull.
A proportionally sized pleasure boat is almost surely made of fiberglass or even wood, which is just not as strong.
Basically: ships are designed to stand up to anything short of a hurricane or a rogue wave, and the material/construction is made in service of that.
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