Buoyancy: United States Customary Units and Water Ski Enthusiasts
Today most people think of ships as common every day tools that don’t take much to understand. One builds a hull and some little structuring later and bam you have a ship. But ship building is much more than taking some metal and building a floating structure. It takes years of understanding and research to build such a vessel. Mankind has been building ships for centuries but it was not until the 17th century that Archimedes, a great Greek Mathmatitions, ideas were used and studied closely. Today no one would even think of building a ship without using some type of calculations or a computer to draft out a design. The same principles used in the dynamics of ship building are used in the manufacturing of kneeboards, water skis and wakeboards. Knee boarding is a growing sport among water ski enthusiasts and is a popular alternative to water skiing, wakeboarding, and bare footing.
Knee boarding gets its roots from southern California where in the late 60s early 70s some surfboarders tried using their home maid boards to surf behind boats. Surfers in other parts of the country soon caught on and by the late-70s the new concept of “surf-skiing” now became known as knee boarding. In the last 25 years kneeboards have changed dramatically. The kneeboard began life as a heavy and cumbersome board with a teardrop shape, a thin strap to hold you in and little to no padding for your knees. The kneeboards build today have many different shapes and styles, from novice to expert. They have contoured bottoms to provide better performance along with a thick strap and good shock absorbent pads to keep your knees from getting injured. Whether flying across the water on a kneeboard or floating along in a ship, buoyancy is a part of the design process. Buoyancy is defined in Archimedes principle as any object, wholly or partly immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object. If an object placed in the water
Knee boarding gets its roots from southern California where in the late 60s early 70s some surfboarders tried using their home maid boards to surf behind boats. Surfers in other parts of the country soon caught on and by the late-70s the new concept of “surf-skiing” now became known as knee boarding. In the last 25 years kneeboards have changed dramatically. The kneeboard began life as a heavy and cumbersome board with a teardrop shape, a thin strap to hold you in and little to no padding for your knees. The kneeboards build today have many different shapes and styles, from novice to expert. They have contoured bottoms to provide better performance along with a thick strap and good shock absorbent pads to keep your knees from getting injured. Whether flying across the water on a kneeboard or floating along in a ship, buoyancy is a part of the design process. Buoyancy is defined in Archimedes principle as any object, wholly or partly immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object. If an object placed in the water
Cited: Serway, Raymond. Principles of Physics. Second Edition. Fort Worth: Emily Barrosse, 1998. "Scuba Equipment and Dive Gear." Buoyancy. 07/July/2008. ScubaToys. 22 Aug 2008 . G. Fairman, Jonathan. "Buoyancy." Archimedes Principle. August 1996. 22 Aug 2008 .