Is it possible for a ship to sink or capsize if it is overloaded or too heavy?

Question

I just need a simple explanation. All of my research for the last couple of hours has been very technical and over my head. Can a ship sink or capsize if it has too much weight or is overloaded? Also...are there any actual examples of this?

Answer 1

Yes it is possible for a ship that is loaded too heavy to sink or capsize. It can also be loaded such that the center of gravity is wrong and it will cause it to capsize. There are more ferry catastrophes than any other boat because all the load is on the deck. If the moment of heel is greater than the righting moment, it will capsize.

Answer 2

EXAMPLE: "ICE", if a ship gets too much "ICE" on it, she will capsize, that's why the crew must go out there with big wrenches, and break it off the deck and bow (freezes from Bow spray).

Answer 3

if it is over weight, the leveling device will not catch up the  ships computer and yes it could tip over and sink, if action of the crew is not taken..put a old style wash pan ,and try to stand up in it in your pool, whoops ,over you go///

Answer 4

Capsize? Yes, but that depends on where the load is.

Fill your kitchen sink with water.  Take a plastic drinking cup.  Put a bunch of coins in it and try to tip it over by pushing on it or making waves.  It won't tip.  Add more coins.  It still won't tip over.

Now take out the coins, put styrofoam or a dry cloth in the bottom.  Then add the coins on top of that.  It will now tip over easier, it maybe even by itself.  Because the bottom of the cup is lighter than water (and wants to float) whereas the top is heavier than water (and wants to sink).

The point is, if a boat has enough weight near the bottom (like a sailboat's keel), and little near the top, it's near impossible to tip over.  Some family cruising sailboats cannot tip over for this reason.

But if a boat has the weight located nearer to the top, particularly above the water line, it becomes very sensitive to heeling (leaning) and can easily exceed it's ability to pop back upright.  Just like ferries in a previous answer.

Tankers and cargo ships tend to carry [enough of] their weight low, whereas cruise ships and ferries tend to carry a lot of weight above the water line.  But the balast makes up for it.  Overloading a high weighted ship (such as a cruise ship) can be too much for the balast, therefore if it gets sideways in a wave, it can tip over.

As for sinking, if the boat sits too low in the water, it becomes easier for an oncoming wave to spill over the top if the bow (or stern) can't rise fast enough due to weight.  But then there are pumps to handle that.  And it would take both a lot of waves and pump failures to cause a sinking.

Some boats sink from overloading because they simply break from the stress of riding the waves, like the Edmund Fitzgerald and a few other tankers.  One video I saw on Discovery, shows an oil tanker sinking.  It looked like it sat low in the water but that wasn't the problem.  The problem was that the hull was bending near the middle from the stress.

Answer 5

If it overloaded the center of gravity will be to high, raising the risk of capsizing or just being to low in the water. To stop this from happening ships have a "Plimsoll" mark, which is a load mark that varies from fresh to salt water so a ship is not overloaded.

Answer 6

Yes.  Got sit in a simple little boat,  just a two person row boat is good, what happens when you get it? It settles a little lower in the water.  Add another person and it settles lower still.  Eventually if you keep adding people (or anysort of weight) it will be too much and the water will come up over the sides and down she goes!!!

Answer 7

of course! but this will most likely not happen with modern shipping.  the ship has stability computers that calculate stresses on the hull.  if the steel is weak and cracks, well then the ship may sink or capsize due to the increase in forces acting on the hull.  

do a search for the MT ERIKA that sunk off the coast of France maby years ago.  I happened to load a ship once where the Chief Engineer was onboard the ERIKA when she went down, according to what he said the welds of the steel plates on the deck just seperated.