why does a boat float?

Dick Maisenbacher: The boat displaces water. For every square foot of water the buoyancy is equal to I think 64 pounds. If you add enough weight to any boat she will do down. Some boats have a weight at the bottom of the boat called a ballast to keep it upright.

Dexter Dingus: Buoyant force

Ayesha Genova: The boat has weight, and it displaces (moves out of the way) water with its bulk. If the weight of the water displaced is more than what it weighs, it floats. As the boat gets heavier, it sits lower and lower in the water. If too heavy, it swamps and sinks.Even a submarine floats. Its takes in water to dive, and pushes it back out in order to rise in the water....Show more

Toshiko Reimers: It is the laws of buoyancy and water displacement.

Sunshine Holets: Something floats when it displaces sufficiant water to balance it's weight. A floating object needs to have an average density lower than the water it is floating in (density of water va! ries with temperature and salinity)typically boats are floated by air both in open spaces inside the boat and in the case of most smaller boats inside foam or sealed pockets of air (the foam or sealed air spaces ensure the boat does not completely sink even if the open spaces are filled with water through a capsize or similar event).adding more weight will make a boat float lower in the water. adding too much weight will make a boat sink....Show more

Rosalva Steinmann: water displacement, look it up

Rocio Karvis: One word.Upthrust =]

Toby Women: good question, especially since all big ships are made of steel....and why that airoplane stays up in the air .... bouyancy...yep..seems the more hollow it is the more it floats, but all that steel....good question..........

Janean Guz: Dear Cfish, .......A boat will float because it weighs less than the water that it displaces. If the boat weighs forty tuns, but displaces thirty nine and nine tenths tuns, it! will sink. We had a tugboat captain who got into trouble near! where I live (Seattle). He started with a barge full of sand in salt water and headed up one of the rivers in this aria. Salt water weighs more than fresh water. But the barge with load weighs the same. Part way up the river the barge became heavier as the river water poured over the sides. The sand had to be reloaded into another barge before they could re-float the first. .....Water weighs 62.4 pounds per cubic foot. That is about 8 pounds per gallon. A twenty-five gallon container should hold up my two-hundred pound body, but with none to spare. That is why boats have "freeboard". That is some "extra" to take care of a little weight shifting or some waves or extra weight added (catch a big fish, maybe). For a small boat, a foot of "freeboard " is usually plenty. How many people will a small boat hold? Multiply length of boat by width and divide by fifteen should be close. A boat three feet wide by ten feet long should hold two people, if they are not to big....Show more!