So far in this book we’ve focused on land-based activities. It’s time to hit the water. In this chapter, we will explore the basic physics behind boats and things that float. As with the chapters on sports and car simulations, we’ll start armed with an understanding of Newtonian mechanics and kinematics. The concepts of force, acceleration, torque, and velocity apply just as well to boats as they do to projectiles or cars. The big difference with boats, of course, is that they float, so we will learn about a new force that allows this to happen.