At first look, an anchor is just a heavy weight tied to a rope. Anchors have been around since dugout canoes and every boat, from kayak to cruise ship, carries an anchor. But anchors bite more than the sea floor. Here are some interesting anecdotes about anchors that are sure to grab you.
Everything You Wanted to Know About Anchors
The most misused anchor-related expression is “anchor’s away!” The correct spelling is anchors aweigh, a maritime term that means “lift the anchor.” The earliest known reference to this expression dates to 1670 in a novel called The Tempest, a prose adaptation of the Shakespeare play by the same name.
Sailor lingo around anchors varies. In New England or eastern Canada, a boat “rides” to its anchor, which is attached to the boat by a “rode.” Elsewhere the rope and chain are called a cable. Sailors everywhere call the free end of the anchor line the “bitter end” because it would be bitter to drop the rope in the water.
Some anchors are not on a boat. Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Barbara Walters and Peter Jennings sat behind the nightly news anchor desk. These anchors are trusted fixtures on our television screens. Will Ferrell, the star of the 2004 comedy Anchorman, doesn’t count.
The largest anchor in the world belonged to one of the biggest ships ever built. The Seawise Giant’s 36-ton anchor is 21 feet long and 15 feet wide. The anchor is now a centerpiece display at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.
Thanks to the Vikings, the first improvement to the anchor, called a killick, was an iron rod strapped to a heavy stone. After the killick, it took another millennium for the classic fluke anchor, with its long shank, crown and two flukes, to take hold.
At the time of its construction, the anchor on the doomed cruiseliner Titanic was the largest hand-forged anchor ever built. Transporting the 18-foot-long, 16-ton anchor from Netherton, Ireland, to Belfast required 20 horses and the procession drew a crowd of spectators. Sadly, the Titanic never used its colossal anchor.
Feature photo: Alamy
