• henfredemars
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    4 months ago

    Does having a keel imply that the ship is self-righting? Like, completely submerged, does it also guarantee that the ship floats back to the top, oriented?

    • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      Yes. They are weighted with lead, and help keep the boat topside-up. They are also a critical component to the functioning of sail propulsion. The keel works in a kind of opposition to the sail to propel the boat forward, similar to how squeezing an ice cube between your thumb and finger will ‘squirt’ it out in a direction perpendicular to those forces.

    • noughtnaut@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      But also no, if it’s capsized, the boat may right itself in time before it floods to a point where it sinks.

      A fully submerged boat will not bob to the surface. The keel adds stability and (counter)weight, but negative buoyancy - what keeps the boat afloat is the air in the hull.

      Once it’s fully submerged, there’s nothing pulling it up (unless you have some seriously good (and closed!) hatches…