Here's a question for you...

While at lunch with some friends I used to work with, we somehow came up with the following obviously very important question:

Will a skip float?

First of all it was that simple, but as we asked more and more people, it got a bit more detailed.

An empty 12 yard builders skip with no leaks apparently weighs about three quarters of a tonne. Not sure whether metric or imperial though...and we got that info over the phone so don't take the spelling of 'tonne' as an indication. It's placed the right way up on a calm body of water. No unusual weather conditions. Just a skip and a body of water.

We know the theory - if the water the skip could hold weighs more than the skip itself, then it should float. So I guess it's a case of finding the volume of the skip and working out the weight of the water. We couldn't find any websites with a definitive answer to our question...

Oddly, from our little straw poll, about two thirds answered yes, they thought under these conditions a skip would float. But most women we asked said no.

Any takers?