![]() bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again. |
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![]() Alex "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -- Isaac Asimov |
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![]() Lost anchor and chain. The bitter end is supposed to be secured. |
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![]() Imagine what would happen when several dozen tons of steel dropping at terminal velocity reaches the end. You'd have a lost chain *and* a busted winch. -- Drew |
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![]() As told by an old friend of mine, who was in charge of the bow AA gun tubs on a heavy cruiser. The captain checked and was told there were no Japanese ships anywhere near. They anchored to blow the tubes on one of their boilers. The other boilers were kept at full pressure just in case. A Japanese cruiser hove into sight. Ray heard the captain on page, "Let go the bitter end!". Ray yelled to his gun crews, "Grab as much ammunition as you can carry, and run aft as fast as you can go!" The ship backed off the chain at full power. The whipping chain wiped the deck clean of anything forward of the winches. Of course, the captain of a heavy cruiser would probably check the depth before dropping anchor. That's the real "stupid" of that video. |
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![]() You said the chain should have been attached. I said that would take the winch with it. Your story sure sounds like the chain wasn't attached. No? -- Drew |
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![]() The command was, "Let go the bitter end". That means unshackle it from the ship. The bitter end is secured to a strong structure in the chain locker, not to the winch. |
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![]() That's got to be one hell of a mechanism, as I assume it's only used in emergencies and needs to be a quick-release. -- Drew |
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![]() . . to stop a free falling anchor, it'd be there to stop a drifting ship from pulling off its chain. An anchor should never be dropped unless you know how deep the water is. This you can get from your charts. |
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![]() "Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman |
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![]() Yes, but that just keeps the wind from blowing you away - the sea anchor pulls you in whatever direction the water is flowing. If the water is heading for the rocks, you'd better have good danforth on a chain. |
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![]() One of them said that even if the chain were secured at the end, would can take the attachment with it (or break) if it falls. F = ma and all that. There's just too much mass going too fast if something goes wrong. It's better to let it go and try to retrieve it later. Is that always the case? Dunno. But it made sense to me. More on reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/nononono/comments/1f7dxk/us_navy_ship_loses_anchor_and_chain_some/ Cheers, Scott. |
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![]() First comment linked to this. BTW at the end of that video it shows total weight of anchor and chain lost was 104 tons. Holy shit. -- Drew |
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![]() i.e. the sudden stop at the end tends to send "a" towards infinity. |
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![]() (Believe my first demo of how that works), as a tyke was ~~ "Ya gots a hammer and a nail. You don't place the hammer over nail-head and push". Do you? |