The ferryman is busy...
The ship cant look like that in reality. I wouldn't float (ina way it is supposed to) even witohut the passengers! No one would seriously design a ship with lines like that.
You're right, that kind of thing probably wouldn't float very well (or for very long) as demonstrated by the object in following pic:
Three-masted royal Swedish ship Wasa, from 1627. Sank on her virgin voyage outside Stockholm's harbor, when a mild gust of wind knocked her over. Still, I bet she was planned with serious mind all right - only the designers on those days were not up to building technicues and consequences of their solutions. Nowadays designers should know better than to plan another Wasa, which leads me too to believe that the bbc pic was not entirely accurate..
Probably the ferry in question would be wider than it would seem from that side view there. Still, that bbc pic reminds me more of Volition Bravos (or Wasa) than anything else. But regardless of the design, ships tend to sink if they are overloaded and/or the cargo is unbalanced. If the captain didn't sunk along his ferry, he should be stripped of rank and citizenship in the GTVA and executed at sunrise. Also the possible corporation(s) responsible of overbooking these ferries in hope of greater profit should be nailed and put under heavy surveillance not to do that again.
