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On the water

The physics of capsizing

Peter Main explains the forces that make a floating craft stable, and discusses what might make it capsize. The shape of hull that, theoretically, maximises the speed of a racing boat also makes it unstable — a compromise between speed and stability is needed

The terms in bold link to topics in the AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA A-level specifications, as well as the IB, Pre-U and SQA exam specifications.

The forces of buoyancy (Archimedes’ principle) and gravity determine whether a floating boat is in stable equilibrium or capsizes.

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