[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Lone Palm. Thanks!

Is there something toward the last few links of the Anchor chain that prevent it from running out and overboard? Or is shipboard end secured in its storage area below decks? (15 shots of chain has to weigh a bit!)

[CheshireTheCat]

Again, thank you for your well wishes and prayers.

I am giving you my weekly update.

I am sorry not to respond individually, but I just don’t have the time and energy. I’m only logging into FR to let you know I am still half alive.

Work is a bear. This is the absolute worst project I have been on and it will be ongoing for another month. I just finished working for the day now and was out running around all day for work for hours on end work. It is only going to get worse because someone on my team threw a hissy fit over “safety concerns” and is threatening not to go out and do her audits. I don’t know the details of what happened. I am guessing she copped an attitude and someone told her off, but maybe something scary did happen. We go into a lot of areas with drug problems and a murder took place a couple months ago right next door to where I was earlier in the same day.

My aunt is doing better. She insisted I take her with me grocery shopping because I guess I don’t buy the right stuff.

I am at least sleeping a decent amount of hours. Trying to keep up with the vitamins can be kind of tough. For instance, tonight I was so tired and had more work to do and didn’t feel like stopping to get milk. It was already past 8pm when I got home. So I had nothing to snack on and an empty stomach and couldn’t take any vitamins.

And I have to work all day tomorrow, including another long drive.

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

Is there something toward the last few links of the Anchor chain that prevent it from running out and overboard?

IIRC the weight given was 8 tons per shot, which adds up to 120 tons for a chain that's 15 shots long.

For us landlubbers, that's a tiny bit more than a fully loaded railroad car. Which will go wherever it wants until it runs into something that weighs a great many times more than itself...like the earth or something, eh. (Got up close when five or six cars of a coal train derailed at about 50MPH.....EXTREMELY impressive, messy, loud and scary.)

Tie down the "bitter end"? Well, yeah but I'd consider that connection to be more a housekeeping touch than anything remotely capable of halting that chain once it got up to speed. JMHO the chain windlass/brake system are really what keeps (or tries to keep) the chain from escaping.

Just stay outta the way if it fails.

Heap bad medicine.

[LonePalm]

The bitter end of the anchor chain is connected to the aft bulkhead of the chain locker with a removable shackle. A ship's chain locker is, in my informed but not so humble opinion, the nastiest place on a ship. I have crawled through nicer bilges. Not doing that again.

IIRC, one bow anchor, they have two, for a Nimitz-class carrier weighs 60K pounds. They carry twelve shots of chain for each anchor. Each shot of chain is about 20,500 pounds.

Therefore, each anchor and chain weighs 306,000 pounds or 153 short tons.

WWG1WGA

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Spitzensparkin1]

Pete from Shawnee Mission wrote: “s there something toward the last few links of the Anchor chain that prevent it from running out and overboard? Or is shipboard end secured in its storage area below decks? (15 shots of chain has to weigh a bit!)”

.......................

It is called the “bitter end” and attaches inside the chain locker to prevent loosing the entire anchor chain overboard.

I always wondered about the origins of that old phrase. HT to Lone Palm! Now we know.

SS1