How Come Ships Don’t Sink in Bad Weather?

Ships are one of the oldest forms of transportation in history. While ships today are generally considered safe, ships in the past sunk quite often. The majority of ships in the past were known to sink when they hit bad weather. However ships today don’t sink as often in rough conditions because of the technology that has been invented. Although bad weather still plays a big role in the sinking of some ships nowadays, the percentage of the ships surviving has gone way up.

Storms out at sea are some of the most intense experiences people have to face while on a ship. The powerful wind, heavy rain, strong thunder, and the towering waves were all apart of what can made it nearly impossible for ships to stay afloat in the past. Now that we have more advanced technology and have found other ways to avoid ships from sinking, traveling on them has become far more safe.

One way ships avoid sinking in storms is by simply avoiding them completely. They do this by using predictive weather reports. Captains can also use this to plot their routes ahead of time and determine their arrival and departure times. Ships nowadays get weather reports through satellite and radios. Most also carry a machine that picks up radio signals and can translate them into text.

Other than avoiding storms, modern ships have other elements that help them stay afloat. They have ballasts which are weights that help stabilize ships during rough weather conditions. The more weight a boat has, the harder it is for it to be tossed around while at sea which makes also makes sinking a little more difficult. Often times when ships have to rely on sturdy engineering when they the ballasts aren’t enough.

The way ships are built also play a very big role in surviving storms. Strong heavy steel is used to construct modern ships. This makes them more resistant to damage. The steel exterior of a ship is built to be able to sustain things that a storm might throw at it. The strong support structures that they have on the inside help increase the endurance limit of the ship. All these machines, technology tools, and parts on the ship make sinking far less likely of happening.