How do anchors on yachts work and how can they hold a whole boat when they lay on flat sea ground?
In: Technology
There seems to be a lot of misinformation/misunderstanding about anchors. First of all, if it was up to the chain to hold the ship, we wouldn’t even have anchors. Secondly, the anchor on my boat doesn’t even have chain, it has nylon line and it works quite well. The way anchors actually work is that the blades, tines, wings, whichever, dig into the sea/lake bed and prevent the anchor from sliding horizontally across the sea/lake floor. The “trick” to making anchors work is to pay out enough line/chain so that when the line is taught, it makes about a 30 degree angle with the water. The lateral force of the boat trying to drift tends to drive the anchor deeper, so if the force pulling the boat is greater, the holding power increases in kind. When it is time to lift anchor, the line is pulled until the boat is almost directly over it, the anchor has almost no holding power against vertical force and breaks free quite easily.
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