You've heard of concrete canoe competitions, designed to challenge the skills of engineering students. You can make concrete float, if the weight of the displaced water is greater than the weight of the boat and whatever is in it. Scale up those little concrete canoes, and you have a concrete ship. It sounds insane, but massive cargo ships made of concrete exist all over the world. They were built mainly during the steel shortages of the two world wars.
Phil Edwards introduces us to concrete ships by tracing the history of 24 ships built at the McCloskey shipyard in Tampa, Florida, in just over a year (1943-44). Oh, they are still around, even if they don't float anymore. Find out more about concrete ships at The Crete Fleet. This video has a 95-second skippable ad at 2:00. (via Laughing Squid)
Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Concrete Ships
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1 comment:
I remember a friend of mine whose father had a concrete yacht.
I'm all like "yeah, lol, right, you got a bridge too "
Well, it turned out that not only did the yacht have a bridge but it was indeed made with concrete.
Eureka ! learnt my first lesson about displacement.
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