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.
Picture the anchor on the bottom, maybe 20 to 30 feet of chain in the horizontal plane, than a long sweeping curve to the hauser where the chain exits the ship. Damage would be dependant on depth of harbor deeper requires more chain out. The topography of the harbor bottom would also play into the circumstance.
The layout of harbor, depth, various inner reefs, outcropings, many thing come into play. One time on med cruise two fun loving shipmates “borrowed” a slow leaky rowboat to return to our ship anchored in an Italian harbor, the boat sank. It cost our ship $5,000.00 to replace same rowboat. The rich American factor.