Capstan use when Weighing Anchor

[Charles Green]

This is my understanding of weighing the bower anchor on a large vessel:  When a vessel is put to anchor, the cable is payed out a prescribed distance to allow some spring to minimize strain.  A marker buoy  is set to identify the anchor's location.  When it's time to move on, a ship's boat equipped with a windlass is set out.  When it's near the marker buoy, the anchor is fished for with a grapnel.  When located, the windlass is used to pull the anchor just off the bottom and then floated/brought under the small boat to the cathead.  Up to this time, the capstan crew simply reel in the slack as the small boat approaches.  It is only after the anchor breaks the surface does the capstan crew bear the weight of the anchor.  Is this all true as standard practice?

 

On modern vessels I have noticed the anchor chain hanging nearly vertically.  Is there a clutch and motor assembly to take in and reel out anchor chain as the vessel rises and falls?

[popeye2sea]

That is not the way it is done.  When the ship pays out the anchor rode to it's appropriate length its first purpose is to provide a horizontal pull along the bottom to set the flukes into the bottom.  Then an additional length is payed out to provide some spring to allow the ship to ride easy at anchor. When getting underway again the ship is hove up to the anchor by the capstan until the anchor cable is vertical. at that point the flukes will have lost the proper angle to be able to bite into the bottom.  Depending on the direction of the wind the effort can be assisted by sailing up to the anchor.  The anchor is broken free (aweigh) and is hoisted to the point where the ring is above water.  Then the anchor is catted and the cat tackle takes the strain and hoists the anchor up to the cat head.  At this point the anchor is fished by a tackle fastened to the shank near the crown and hauled up to be stowed.

 

The only time you would use a boat with an anchor is when you are kedging.  The anchor is slung under the boat and rowed out forward of the ship; the anchor cable being payed out from the ship.  The anchor is then dropped to the bottom.  The ship is then able to heave itself up to the anchor using the capstan.

 

Sometimes a kedge anchor would be set out  by boat to provide some additional protection against drifting into a lee shore when anchored in a tidal stream or during a gale.

 

The description you mentioned above would be the procedure probably used to recover a lost anchor.

 

On modern vessels the procedure is essentially the same.  The ship pays out anchor chain to a length appropriate to provide the flukes holding power.  I used to know the proper ratio, but it is something like 3 or 4 times the depth of water.  The catenary formed in the anchor chain from the anchor to the ship provides the necessary spring to allow the ship to ride at anchor comfortably without having to continually adjust the chain.  The deck watch will periodically check how the anchor is tending (the angle the chain makes from the bow) and the length of the rode will be adjusted as necessary.  Sometimes, if the ship is anchored for a greater length of time, the chain will be payed out or hove in slightly (to freshen the nip) in order to reduce the chance of damage by chafing.

 

Regards,

[Roger Pellett]

Ancre recently published a monograph about French Longboats between the late 1600’s  and early 1:800’s.  The publication includes a section on use of ships’ boats to set and weigh anchors.  Steven Luce’s “Seamanship” first published in 1866 included a lengthy section on the same topic that can now be found on the Internet.

 

 

The fact is is that a large sailing ship without sails is essentially imobile, and at the mercy of wind and tides, so boats were used often  to handle anchors, particularly in crowded anchorages where it was necessary to set out and recover more than one anchor.  While the first anchor could be dropped as posted above, the second would have to be carried out and recovered by boat.  Once one or both anchors were set there were a number of mishaps that could occur requiring use of one or more boats, one being a “fouled hawse” where the ship swinging around its two anchors twisted the cables together.  With the use of chain cable this problem could be avoided by shackling the two anchors to a common swivel, but this too required use of a boat.

 

Some naval bases, particularly those with small harbors moored ships to permanent moorings. I have read a fascinating account of HMS Hood securing to one of these in Malta Harbor in the late 1930’s a complicated procedure that again, required use of one or more of her boats to first land men on the mooring buoy.

 

Roger

 

[Charles Green]

Thank you popeye2sea and Roger for taking the time to spell this out for me.

 

Charles