Back in my childhood in the 70-80's era lets say there was a question on an IQ test about just this problem. A ship carrying a bunch of barrels of oil or whatn

Back in my childhood in the 70-80's era lets say there was a question on an IQ test about just this problem. A ship carrying a bunch of barrels of oil or whatnot is in a lock and needs to be unloaded. There is no crane and people are lazy. Given the current distance between the deck of the ship and the ground, the current draft of the ship and the triangle of its hull, and the shape and level of water in the lock.... How many barrels do you have to push over the side to lighten the boat and also raise level of water in the lock until you can unload the rest of the barrels by rolling them down a ramp to shore? Seal up the topmost closest to density of water containers, attatch a line to them,push them off to lighten the ship and raise the level of water in the lock until the ship floats. Retrieve the cargo later. heh. Then again, I couldn't figure out the correct answer to that spherical cow question back then and probably still can't. You could also maybe flood the lock with oil which should be plentiful as long as it's still dense enough to be lighter than the ship. Let the ship float away on oil until it's straightened out, then clean up the oil mess and Bob's your uncle. If only spherical cows.