Marine Engineering

An anchor is used by a ship to make itself fast to the sea-bed so that it will stay in one place and will not drift due to wind and current. A shop normally carries three anchors, two working anchors, one on each bow, attached to cables and stowed up the hawse pipes. These are called Bower Anchors. One Spare Bower anchor lashed and well secured in the vicinity of the forecastle deck. If one of the working bower anchors is lost, this spare anchor is shackled on to the anchor cable and used. A fourth anchor may also be carried on small vessels known as Stream anchor, lashed and secured at or near the stern of the vessel. It is meant to be used in narrow channels for preventing the stern of the vessel from swinging. But these days it is hardly ever used for this purpose. Earlier all anchors had a stock, which was just before anchoring, fixed in position at right angles to the arms. The stock helped the anchors to turn itself so that the arms became vertical and one of the flukes...