🔍 Key Concepts

• Stability and draft requirements before getting underway • Effects of ballast on a vessel’s center of gravity and seaworthiness • The meaning of free surface effect and when it is desirable or undesirable

💭 Think About

• When a barge or vessel is light (no cargo), what problems can occur with stability, wind, and sea conditions? • Is free surface effect something operators normally try to create or something they try to reduce? How does ballast relate to that? • Which option describes something that must be ensured for safe navigation on voyage, rather than an optional or secondary concern?

✅ Before You Answer

• Identify which choice directly relates to safe stability and seaworthiness underway • Decide whether environmental concerns are the primary purpose of taking on ballast or a secondary consideration • Recall whether the usual goal of ballasting is to increase or decrease free surface effects