HOLDING FAST

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 136, 5 December 1929, Page 23

HOLDING FAST

ANCHORS AND CABLES

IMPORTANT PARTS OF SHIPS

A Melbourne firm completed a sizeable rope the other day, an enormous hawser said to be five feet in size. Hawsers are measured by their circumference, as is all rope and cordage, but chain cables by the diameter of the' link. In the old days all cordage and cables were of rope, and Nelson's ships were anchored with a thirty-inch hawser on the "best bower," but nowadays steel wires and chain cables have supplanted the old-time cordage, though a stout Manilla cable or hawser is still valued as a towing hawser, or as a spring to ease the strain, says a writer in the "Sun News Pictorial." Tor there is a great deal more "give and take" in a good Manilla cable than in a steel wire or chain cable. THE ANCHOR CHAIN. Steel wire rope is used nowadays for hawsers, standing and running rigging, cargo falls, derrick spans, trawl warps and fishing ropes. It combines enormous strength with great flexibility and long life, and its manufacture is a work, of art. Steel wires range troni lm up to 12in, and consist of six strands round a central core, each strand having 12, 24, 37, or 61 wires in it, these latter being particularly strong and flexible. The 12in wire will not break under a stress of 350 tons, and wires have ! efoA made to take a breaking stress of 1200 tons on the single part—a terrific weight. The diameter of a 12in wire is slightly more than 34in. Most ships, except very small craft, are anchored with chain cables nowadays, the size of which is laid down by law, according to the size of the vessel. All these chain cables, on which the safety of a ship depends, are first exammed at a proving establishment for the testing of anchors and chains. There are eight of these places in Britain but so far none has been established in Australia. In the proving, the anchors and chains are subjected to strains and stresses similar to those they will meet at sea, and if these tests are successfully passed, every anchor and each link of the cable is stamped accordingly. The anchors and cables of a ship are perhaps the most important part of her equipment. Nowadays they reach enormous size—the anchor of H.MS Hood weighing nine and a half tons, and that of the Mauretania the same. The size and weight of all anchors is regulated by the law; thus a ship of 10,000 tons gross must carry two anchors each weighing three tons, and sailing ships are obliged to carry proportionately heavier anchors. HOPE'S EMBLEM. The best anchor, or rather the one in most favour with seamen, was the Old Admiralty pattern," which had the virtue of holding the ground better than any other type. But it was a large and ungainly object with its great projecting stock, which, necessitated special gear to stow it. Then came the so-called "patent" anchor, much in use nowadays. As the windlass heaves the anchor up at the end of the cable, the stock of the anchor passes through the hawsepipe and jams close up, makin<* a neat and easy "stow." Nowaday! the old Admiralty pattern is rarely seen except in sailing ships, and down at the wharves and piers the anchor will bo seen drawn close up the hawsepipe. . j Anchor aud cable have always been symbolical of the sea and of ships Conrad termed the anchor the "Emblem of Hope"; it is tho symbol of Admiralty—the Sign of the Sea. When a ship .is safe alongside a wharf or pier, she is securely made fast with wire ropes and manilla hawsers, and her anchor is not required, except perhaps that it may be dropped so that she can be hauled off the pier when leaving. But in a lee shore or in a gale of wind a ship has often been saved by her trusty anchors and chain cables— more perhaps by the latter than the former, for the scope of the cable is the main factor. Its great weight causes a curve or catenary to form, and there is thus no direct pull on the anchor, but a spring-like action to which the ship rides easily. Sometimes, when disabled in deep water, a ship has been able to ride out a gale by merely paying out her cables, which kept her head to wind and served as a kind of anchor.