Towing on a Raft

Yesterday was a very fun day. My friends and I went out on my cousins boat and went towing on this super cool raft. It was an incredible day and everyone loved it.

However, as the boat was moving, I noticed that the boat was producing waves and I recall that in physics class we learned about waves. As the boat slowly travled in the marina and out to the ocean, it was easily traveling faster than the waves it was producing. I realized that the boat traveling faster than the speed of water waves finds itself always entering into water with a smooth, unrippled surface. The waves the boat created are known as bow waves. Therefore, the boat outruns the waves it produces.

Out in the open when the boat was traveling at a very fast speed and pulling me on the raft, as shown in the picture, the waves overlap at the edges, and the pattern made by these overlapping waves is V-shaped. At the very fast rate at which we were traveling, it is a disturbance produced by the overlapping of many circular waves. Also, the raft created its own bow waves too and we used the boats waves to jump and move around wildly.