The Incredible Engineering of Ship Ballast: WHAT KEPT WARSHIPS UPRIGHT

Deep inside every wooden warship lay an engineering system few people ever think about: hundreds of tons of iron and stone packed into the dark hold. This is the story of the ballast that kept ships of the line upright when a squall hit, the invisible toxic gas that pooled over the stones and killed men in silence, and the backbreaking labor of moving tons of cast iron by hand to trim the ship. A quiet, forgotten triumph of physics, sweat and sacrifice from the age of sail. #AgeOfSail #NavalHistory #RoyalNavy