I frequently hear the supposed virtues of external ballast when
somebody hits a rock and says it absorbed the impact so they got no
water in the boat. Does this make sense? Most internal ballast is
encapsulated so an impact to it would not let in any water. I also
hear horror stories about external ballast keels on older boats coming
loose resulting in very expensive reapirs or drilling into thick lead
to install new keel bolts. So, why is external ballast supposedly
better?