Thinking about what happened in Baltimore and wondered if huge ships have a way to rapidly deploy anchors if the ship becomes uncontrollable close to shore. Independent of engine power.
In: Engineering
Yes, any ship operating in confined waters will have a team at the anchors ready to deploy one or more if it becomes necessary. In the case of the Baltimore Collision there have been reports that at least one anchor was deployed by the crew prior to the collision.
But you simply can’t stop something that massive quickly without extraordinarily destructive consequences. This isn’t a movie where dropping an anchor magically makes your ship stop in place, you’re trying to stop something that weighs the equivalent of 5 fully loaded freight trains – the anchor serves as a brake to slow you down, but if you don’t have enough distance, it will not stop you.
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