ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Astern propulsion

Okay kiddo, let's talk about astern propulsion. You know how when you ride a bicycle forward, you pedal to make it go, right? Well, imagine if you wanted to go backward on your bike. Would you pedal forward? No, that wouldn't work! You would have to pedal backwards to make the bike go backwards.

Now, boats and ships also need to be able to go backwards sometimes. Maybe they need to dock at a pier or avoid hitting something in the water. But how do they do that? That's where astern propulsion comes in.

Astern propulsion is the way a boat or ship can move backwards, and it's done using a special part that's attached to the back, called a propeller. A propeller is like a fan that spins around really fast, and it pushes water to make the boat move.

Normally, when a boat or ship is moving forward, the propeller spins one way to push the water behind the boat and make it go forward. But when the boat needs to go backwards, the propeller needs to spin the other way so that it pushes the water in the other direction, which makes the boat move backwards.

So just like how you would pedal backwards on your bike to make it go backward, the propeller on a boat or ship also needs to spin the opposite direction to make it move astern. And that's how astern propulsion works!