Wetlook World Forum

If they remained filled with air, on the other hand, they would be much lighter than their surroundings, would therefore be very buoyant and would be liable to float off if only loosely attached (watch anyone wearing flip flops, which are lighter than water and only loosely attached to the foot, try to keep them on as they wade in!).    In practice loose-topped welly boots always fill with water immediately (and yes, I have tried it too!)    Whether or not the boots stayed on would be dependent almost entirely on how tight or loose they are on the foot (much the same as on land, in fact, but more so because of the flotation effect) - but may be influenced also by how each girl behaves - the girl who remains standing, with her boots trapped between her feet and the bottom of the sea, would be much less likely to lose them than the girl who lifts her legs and kicks out for the shore in a powerful breast stroke (no jokes please!), thereby kicking them off at a time when they are tending to float away anyway.

If you want to write a wholly believable story you really need to try it yourself to find out what happens in different circumstances.    But I used that quote from the Chief Engineer in Star Trek (1st series) for a reason.    It was clearly a bit of a joke by the scriptwriters, because the series was of course fiction and they were actually making up new 'laws of physics' for the Star Trek universe all the time.    Your story is going to be fiction too, so you can do what you like, really!