When I was a kid, I thought those pillars went down to the sea floor.
In reality, they usually go down to some large submerged floats.
I dislike this.ย
Pillars and floats like that are pretty stable, compared to regular boats, so thereโs even a research vessel, called FLIP, that purposefully capsizes itself to be more steady when conducting research.
In a campaign by the conservative Christian right, this ultimately lead to the Parental Advisory sticker, aka the seal of approval for any teenage music fan.