[island911]

A satellite in orbit is said to be weightless - where the forces (gravity and centripetal) are balanced.

Set that satellite on the moon the weight would measure quite a bit less than if weighed on earth.

So, I think it safe to conclude that the weight of an object is dependent on the environment.

The only way you can claim an item will weigh the same whether it's in the water or not is to imply that you are not concerned about anything other than the mass and/or gravitational field on the object changing.

BUT, that completely ignores the environment specified - and ignores the crux of the OP question, which was specifically the environmental affect of water on the weight of steel.

To avoid ambiguity the term mass is used to isolate, when needed, the physical bulk of an item. When asking about weight, we (engineers) typically consider that the person means mass. But when they throw the Q out with the environment variable (space, moon, ocean) we assume that they do mean to ask about weight (measurable) in that particular environment.