| Ballast | Lastre
Weight at the bottom or the lower portion of the boat to give her stability and/or to provide satisfactory fore and aft trim.. Ballast can be place inside the hull of the boat or externally in a keel. Heavy substances can be loaded by a vessel to improve stability, trimming, sea-keeping and to increase the immersion at the propeller. Sea water ballast is commonly loaded in most vessels in ballast tanks, positioned in compartments right at the bottom and in some cases on the sides, called wing tanks. On a tanker, ballast is seawater that is taken into the cargo tanks to submerge the vessel to a proper trim. |