Anchoring

“ In the very height of our extremity the wind lulled for a few minutes; and, although the swell was high beyond expression, two men who were expert swimmers, attempted to go to the buoy of the anchor, which we still saw in the water, at some distance, in a little punt that belonged to the wrecker, which was not large enough to carry more than two. She filled at different times in their endeavours to get into her alongside our vessel; and they saw nothing but death before them, as well as we; but they said they might as well die that way as any other. ”

“ An anchor is forged and fashioned for faithfulness; give it ground that it can bite, and it will hold till the cable parts, and then, whatever may afterwards befall its ship, that anchor is "lost." The honest, rough piece of iron, so simple in appearance, has more parts than the human body has limbs: the ring, the stock, the crown, the flukes, the palms, the shank. All this, according to the journalist, is "cast" when a ship arriving at an anchorage is brought up. ”

“ To be serviceable the anchor must take hold of something. If it simply drags along it will not hold the ship; but the ship may go to pieces on the rocks, even though it has an anchor, which has already been cast over. Now in time of sorrow and perplexity or distress every one throws out an anchor. That is, he tries to take hold of something which will sustain him and keep him, just the [64] same as a boy who falls into the water would grab after a board. They say that a drowning man will even grasp after a straw in order to help to support his body, so that he may save his life. ”

“ If It does not come, you will not be so cowardly or so mean as to miss your tide for such a trifle. You will cut the line and tie a float on and pray Heaven that into whatever place you run, that place will have moorings ready and free.
When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a jolly thing! He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the chance of things. He pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly pulling round, he sees the wind getting into the mainsail, and he feels that she feels the helm. ”

“ There is no man of all our following who will forget that day, because of what happened almost as soon as the anchor held. It was very hot that morning, and what breeze had been out in the open sea was kept from us now by the hills, so that for some miles we had rowed the ships up the winding reaches of the firth; and then, as we laid in the oars and the anchorage was reached, there crept from inland a dim haze over the sun, dimming the light, and making all things look strange among the mountains. ”

“ All hands were sent upon the floe to cut it up ahead, and the whole operation was a novel and, at times, a fearful one; for the ice, being weakened by the cutting, would suddenly gather fresh way astern, carrying men and tools with it, while the chain-cable continued to plough through it in a manner which gave one the idea of something alive, and continually renewing its attacks. The anchor held surprisingly, and after this tremendous strain had been put upon it for above an hour, we had fairly cut the floe in two, and the ship was riding in clear water about half a mile from the shore. ”

“ Your anchor must drop from the bow of your ship with no turn of cable on any of its limbs, else you would be riding to a foul anchor. Unless the pull of the cable is fair on the ring, no anchor can be trusted even on the best of holding ground. In time of stress it is bound to drag, for implements and men must be treated fairly to give you the “virtue” which is in them. The anchor is an emblem of hope, but a foul anchor is worse than the most fallacious of false hopes that ever lured men or nations into a sense of security. ”

“ FOUL AIR. May be generated by circumstances beyond control: decomposing fungi, timber injected with coal tar, hatches battened down, and ashes or coal washed about. Whole crews on the coast of Africa, and in the West Indies, have been thus swept away, despite every precaution. But generally it may be avoided by cleanliness.
FOUL ANCHOR. An anchor is said to be foul, or fouled, either when it hooks some impediment under water, or when the ship, by the wind shifting, entangles her slack cable a turn round the stock, or round the upper fluke thereof. ”

“ A look at the land satisfied all that the vessel was actually moving through the water.
“Let’s try the anchor. It must be dragging,” said Bart.
So they all went to work at the windlass, and in course of time found the anchor raised. As they worked, they found it lighter than they expected; and when at length they had ended, they ran to the bows. All was explained. The anchor was broken off short at the fluke.
“That’s how it happened,” said Bart. “And so we’re in for another adventure.”
“What shall we do now?”
“Sail the vessel, of course,” said Bruce. ”

“ Here are some riding at anchor, moored by delicate threads spun out from their toes; and there are others flashing by in glass armor, bristling with sharp spikes or ornamented with bosses and flowing curves; while fastened to a great stem is an animal convolvulus that, by some invisible power, draws a never-ceasing stream of victims into its gaping cup, and tears them to death with hooked jaws deep down within its body. ”

“ An anchor man, Mr. Danley, is called that for more than one reason. You cannot anchor your boat to a rock unless there is an eye-bolt set in it. And if it already has an eye-bolt, you would have no purpose on that rock. In a way, you will be the anchor of your boat, since you will be tied to it by your safety line. If the boat drifts too far from your rock while you are working, it will pull you off the surface, since it has more mass than you do. ”

“ So the soul must cast out its anchor, and lay hold, not on anything within itself, but on the hope set before it. The anchor of your boat often drags, David, and you drift in spite of it, for there is no sure bottom ”

“ Then, all at once, when these people become aware that you are pushing enquiries, the blade of the anchor wriggles out of the sand, and up they all go, the young men waving their straw hats, and the girls casting sad glances out of their splendid eyes, and the old people silent about prosecuting the acquaintance elsewhere. ”

“ The human soul, like any other noble vessel, was not built to be anchored, but to sail. An anchorage may, indeed, be at times a temporary need, in order to make some special repairs, or to take fresh cargo in ”

“ The people, who till this period had laboured as determined to conquer their difficulties, without a murmur or without a tear, seeing their efforts useless, many of them burst into tears, and wept like children. I gave orders for the anchors, of which we had two remaining, to be thrown over-board one of which, the spare anchor, had been most surprisingly hove in upon the fore-castle and mid-ship, when the ship had been upon her beem-ends, and gone through the decks. ”

“ We counted on a strong flood tide to carry us up the inlet, but push with poles all we could we couldn’t get her anywhere, and finally dropped big anchor in only 6 ft. water [Pg 41C] and just inside of breakers. Not a quiet or particularly safe anchorage, but mighty sight better than pounding in the surf. Sounded pumps and they sucked. What a noble piece of boat building it is. It was 11 o’clock, pitch dark and raining, with wind still soaking drearily from southward. We were soaking, too, but not dreary, you bet. Went to work and made a new anchor stock for little anchor. ”

“ Like a ship at anchor, with all sails set and filled by a strong and ever increasing gale, it was inevitably certain that before long either the anchor must give, or the white sails of her reputation be blown to rags and tatters—bitter state, indeed, for a wife and mother! ”

“ The anchor that is to keep the ship of your life from dragging and finding itself, when the morning breaks, a ghastly wreck upon the reef, must be outside of yourself, and the cable of it must be wrapped round the throne of God. ”

“ An anchor is now carried out to hold us in position when we make a new start; more ropes are taken to the shore, two hitched to the bow and one to the stern. Straight before us is a narrow passage through which the water comes in foaming ridges with extraordinary rapidity. ”

“ The anchors act automatically, sinking their tips towards the ground when the corresponding part of the body thickens, and returning to the original position at an angle of 45 degrees to the upper surface when the part becomes thin again. The arms of the anchor do not lie in the same plane as the shaft, and thus the curve of the arms forms the outermost part of the anchor, and offers no further resistance to the gliding of the animal. ”

“ A projection in the crown works in a recess (right, fig. 3) , and is secured in its place by a forged steel pin, fitted with a nut and washer, which passes through the crown and the heel of the shank. All the above anchors were provided with a stock (fig. 1, hk) , the use of which is to “cant” the anchor. If it falls on the ground, resting on one arm and one stock, when a strain is brought on the cable, the stock cants the anchor, causing the arms to lie at a downward angle to the holding ground; and the pees enter and bury themselves below the surface of the soil. ”

“ The adventurers of two centuries ago had no doubt known of that anchorage for they were very ignorant and incomparably audacious. If it is true, as some say, that the spirits of the dead haunt the places where the living have sinned and toiled, then they might have seen a white long-boat, pulled by eight oars and steered by a man sunburnt and bearded, a cabbage-leaf hat on head, and pistols in his belt, skirting the black mud, full of twisted roots, in search of a likely opening. ”

“ In beating the anchor they all strike at the same instant, giving about three quick strokes to one slow stroke; and were they not to time them with the most perfect conformity, they must inevitably knock out one another’s brains. ”

“ If the chart indicates there is a one-knot westerly drift, assume it could be as much as two knots—one of these times it will be. If the anchorage is strange and the weather uncertain, set an anchor watch, no matter how sleepy you are. For ninety-nine nights you’ll lose your sleep and nothing will happen, but on the hundredth night you’ll save your ship. ”

“ He ceased pulling for a moment . . . "Anything that may be found on a sandbank," Mrs. Travers went on. "On an arid, insignificant, and deserted sandbank."
D'Alcacer gave two strokes and ceased again.
"There is room for a whole world of suffering on a sandbank, for all the bitterness and resentment a human soul may be made to feel."
"Yes, I suppose you would know," she whispered while he gave a stroke or two and again glanced over his shoulder. She murmured the words:
"Bitterness, resentment," and a moment afterward became aware of the keel of the boat running up on the sand. ”

“ That, like a thought, should have control
Over the movement of the whole;
And near it the anchor, whose giant hand
Would reach down and grapple with the land,
And immovable and fast
Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast! ”

“ She sinks ponderously in the trough of a great roller, and the anchor fluke is driven right through her bottom and holds her to the place—for hold her it would, long enough to let the breakers tear every living soul out of her! ”

“ No; he has dropped anchor, and the anchor has never begun to get near the bottom. The consequence is, we’ve been drifting along ever since he left us, and are now ever so many miles away from the place where the anchor was dropped. And, what’s worse, I dare say the Antelope was back there two days ago; but we were gone, and so, of course, Captain Corbet’s lost us, and has no more idea where to look for us than a child. ”

“ The anchor is held by a chain attached to the shackle, and the strain is applied to each arm separately at 1/3d of its length from the point. The proof of the anchor is that it must show no sign of fracture, and that if any deflection is caused by the strain, it must return very nearly to its original shape. A good anchor, after being deflected half an inch, will return to its former shape, leaving no permanent set. ”

“ In either case, they will drift until their anchor takes hold on rock, or she drifts ashore and is wrecked. It is so with us. If our anchor is cast into any of the elements of this world, we shall drift, not into Christ, but away from him, and become wrecks. ”

“ To throw anything overboard. To cast, as heaving the log or the lead. Also, to drag, prize, or purchase, as heaving up the anchor.
HEAVE ABOUT, To. To go upon the other tack suddenly.
HEAVE AND A-WASH. An encouraging call when the ring of the anchor rises to the surface, and the stock stirs the water.
HEAVE AND A-WEIGH. Signifies that the next effort will start the anchor from its bed, and make it a-trip. "Heave and a-weigh, sir," from the forecastle, denotes that the anchor is a-weigh; it inspirits the men to run it to the bows rapidly. ”

“ How to bring a force to weigh up an anchor, or to do any forcible exploit in the narrowest or lowest room in any ship, where few hands shall do the work of many; and many hands applicable to the same force, some standing, others sitting, and, by virtue of their several helps, a great force augmented in little room, as effectual as if there were sufficient space to go about with an axle-tree, and work far from the centre. ”