When a ship is anchored, the spot to drop anchor is choosen so as to back the ship away from the anchor and allow the ship to “swing” on the anchor with the incoming and outgoing tides. In other words, anchored, still moving a bit, grinding coral under the chain.
Oh crap - that’s right they mentioned the chain. Thanks! I can easily see that happening now. My old man was in the navy. We had a 17.5-foot runabout. He had a pretty heavy anchor on it with the triangular blades - I’m guessing it was about 2’ by 2.5’ in size. And 6 to 8 feet of chain on it (to weight it down so it would stay seated iirc.) I always thought that was overkill as a kid! (That and the 10-inch diameter lighted compass he put on the console!)
exnavy >>When a ship is anchored, the spot to drop anchor is choosen so as to back the
exnavy >>ship away from the anchor and allow the ship to “swing†on the anchor with the
exnavy >>incoming and outgoing tides. In other words, anchored, still moving a bit,
exnavy >>grinding coral under the chain.
Could you expand on that explanation more? I can imagine the harbor being maybe 50 feet deep. How do you anchor a boat with a perhaps a 5 ton anchor and 150 feet of chain and come up with 14,000 sq feet of “destruction” caused by it? The math and common sense I’m applying to this just aren’t adding up.
If you figure they could have swung around in a full circle (one cycle of tides in/out)... That only requires a circular contact patch of approximately 67 ft radius to make 14,000 sq ft in area.