A displacement boat (generally a moving object held up by buoyancy of the water) generates a wave that travels alongside at the speed of the boat with the first wave crest at the bow of the boat. Because the wavelength increases with the boat's speed, above a certain speed the second crest appears astern of the boat, so that the boat must travel uphill on the wave it creates. If it lacks the power to get over the top of this wave, its speed is limited to roughly the speed of a wave with the length of the boat. Hence we have the following rule of thumb: The maximum speed of a modestly powered boat is approximately equal to (actually, a little faster than) the wave whose wavelength equals the length of the boat measured at the waterline. Empirically, the propagation velocity of water waves is