How do tall ships stay upright?

James from Cammell Laird explains what stops tall ships falling over with a simple experiment using a butter tub and a clothes peg!
Ships are built so that they can’t easily flip over - or capsize. Whether a boat capsizes or not has a lot to do with its centre of gravity. We think of gravity as a force that pulls things downward (toward Earth's centre), but it doesn't always work like that. Sometimes gravity can make things turn and topple over, especially if they are high up and unbalanced.
One of the most basic rules is that an object will sink if it weighs more than the same volume of water. A ship might be massive but so is the amount of water it displaces.
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This video is part of Sean's Science Around Ships - a Fun Kids series about ships and how they work.
Filmed with support from Cammell Laird. Find out more about Cammell Laird: www.clbh.co.uk