ANCHOR (Lat. ancora, brova, ankyra, akin to Engl. angle; literal meaning, "something crooked. hooked"). A heavy instrument designed to rest on the sea bottom, and, by means of a cable or rope, hold a vessel, buoy, or other float ing object in a desired position. Anchors for buoys frequently consist merely of heavy bloeks of stone, but those for ships are now almost in variably of iron or steel. Many forms of anchors were used by the ancients. The earliest consisted of stonei:, or baskets of stones, which acted mere ly as weights without hooking into the ground; these were followed by hooked sticks, weighted to make them sink, and having only one arm. Other arms were eventually added, so that the anchors resembled the modern grapnel. The earliest recorded use of anehors was by the Egyp tians on their Red Sea galleys, while the Greeks are credited with having used the first iron an chor. Greek vessels had several anchors, one of which, called Uhe "sacred anchor," was never let go until the ship was in dire distress; and a similar custom was, for many years, observed in the British Navy. All sea-going vessels ordi narily carry several anchors. Two of these, at least, are carried well forward, one on each how, and are therefore called bowers, and are desig nated as the port bower or starboard bower, ac cording to the side of the ship on which they are carried. In addition to these, large vessels carry one or two anchors of about the same size, called sheet anchors. They are stowed like the bowers, but usually some distance further aft, and, not being intended for immediate use, are generally securely lashed in place.
A stream anchor is a light anchor, not more than half as heavy as one of the bowers, and usually about one-fourth. It is often very use ful. Very light anchors are called kedges. in the United States Navy the weight of a battleship's bower or sheet anchor is from 14,000 to 18,000 pounds. Stream anchors (the term "stream" is not now much used) weigh from 1,000 to 3,000 pounds, and kedges from 100 to 1,000 pounds. Smaller anchors are carried for the boats. For the purpose of grappling and holding to such objects as a vessel's rigging, trees on shore, chains and the like, a small instrument called a grapnel is used. It has no stock, but has several
arms, each sharply pointed. They were much used in "cutting out" expeditions in the days when such enterprises were eommon. The grap nel, with a short length of chain attached, as the enemy would have severed a rope with their cutlasses, was thrown into the rigging of the ship attacked. This enabled those of the attack ing party, in a tideway. or when the ship at tacked was moving, to keep alongside until they could clamber on board. Grapnels are still is sued for nee in boats in the United States Navy, and a large folding grapnel, with straight hinged arms, is used to some extent in naval boats in place of an anchor of the customary shape. An chors were formerly made of wrought iron, but are now very largely made of cast steel. There are two types in use, the old, or ordinary type, in which the stock is at right angles to the arms, and patent anchors, which have no stock at all, or if they have, it lies in the same plane with the arms. The shape of the ordinary anchor is fa miliar, and is shown in Fig. 1. The main body is called the shank; at one end it joins the arms, and at the other is pierced by a hole through which passes the iron (or steel) stock. The lat ter has a ball east on one end; the other end is bent at right angles a few inches from its ex tremity, and also terminates in a ball, but the ball is removable.. The stock is held in position in the shank by a raised lug, or shoulder, on one side, and by a key on the other. The bend at the end permits it to be partly drawn out and folded down along the shank. At the other end of the shank from the stock are the arms, which are cast or forged in one piece with it. They taper slightly toward their ends, which are called pees, or bills, and on the side toward the shank have shield-shaped pieces called the flukes. The faces of the flukes are called palms. The middle of the curve of the arms, opposite to and in line with the shank, is called the crown.