Christopher Tidy on Tue, 11 Aug 2020
16:44:09 -0700 (PDT) typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
Thanks for the lumber pond tip and link. That's a good story there!

So wooden ships only continue to float after years because the planks expand and stop the interior of the hull filling with water, even if the individual planks would sink on their own?

Ships float because they displace more water than they weigh. And
no matter how tight those edges are, wooden boats leak. which is why
there are so many ways to make the hull water tight, starting with
packing the seams and on to tarring the bottoms.

if you fill a wooden boat with rocks and let the water in, it will
sink. You can then dive down and remove the rocks and the boat will
float. Assuming the wood isn't so water logged (or dense) that it
won't float.
I remember something about building the railroad through the
Amazon Jungle. The main engineer would just cut down trees, if the
logs sank he'd fish them out and use that wood for ties. Another
instance where "exotic woods" were used for mundane purposes because
there was lots of it and it was the only wood around.
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although far too often, Age travels alone."