Does the shape of a boat's front end change how much the water pushes back? A flat bow plows into the water. A pointed bow slices through it. The difference shows up as drag (the force resisting forward motion). You build three wooden boats of equal size: one with a flat cuboid shape, one with a half-cylinder bow, and one with a V-shaped bow and curved bottom. Each boat sits in a water tank with pumps creating a steady current. You load each boat with a 300-gram weight and measure drag with a Newton spring balance. The cuboid boat produces 1.2 N of drag. The half-cylinder drops to 1.05 N. The V-shaped bow has the least drag at 0.85 N.