A vessel's ground tackle is rated to her mass and deployment according to Lloyds Rules. I assume the Rules were broadly the same in 1912 as they are today.
The specification has to take into account any hypothetical situation the vessel may get into throughout her working life. For instance a transatlantic liner might find herself serving time as a troop transport or hospital ship far away from the port facilities normally available to her.
The primary purpose of a stream anchor is to prevent a vessel getting athwart a navigable channel, whatever the state of wind and tide, by holding her between it and one bower. It also enables a time saving running moor to be made without the risks entailed in performing this cavalier manoeuvre with the two bowers.
Another benefit of the stream anchor is that a vessel can use it to 'drop the channel' on the ebb without having to swing ship before getting away on passage. And finally, in a contingency situation it can be used to kedge the vessel.
The theory of ground tackle is to counter the external forces acting upon a vessel by transferring a commensurate fraction of her all-up mass outboard and into contact with the ground. The TRMA web site article is entirely correct in pointing out that (for large vessels, not small boats) the purpose of the anchor is primarily to fix the cable to the seabed; it is the mass of cable veered out (scope) which stabilises the vessel by way of friction against the ground along its length. The half-catenary acts as a buffer against surges of wind, set and wave.
On the matter of the Olympic's stem anchor I am at a loss to understand the convoluted peregrinations around the subject on that TRMA web site. The working arrangements for the stem anchor are described on page 125 of my copy of The Shipbuilder reprint. The wire rope cable reel on the shelterdeck immediately below the anchor housing is worked by a power take-off from an adjacent windlass. Presumably this develops enough power to retrieve the anchor.
As for breaking out the anchor, there may have been a 'dolly' or drum end on the aforesaid wire rope cable reel. Otherwise there is a windlass at the break of the forecastle deck and a liberal amount of intervening bitts and capstans to which snatch blocks and relieving tackles can be lead.
I would surmise the process would consist of getting the anchor aweigh via the ring provided at its centre of gravity on the shank, canting it through 90 degrees against the stemhead plating, shackling on the cable (its fall end having been rove through the hawsepipe and brought back inboard) and then lowering the whole arrangement on a slip rope until the wire cable takes charge and the anchor can be slipped from the deck tackle.
This process would seem to involve the unshipping of the jackstaff and some length of railing, relocating the foretopmast stays further aft, and the deployment of some fendering and a few dollops of grease.
As for housing ('striking') the anchor, this would involve putting a man overside on a lifeline somewhat like the Royal Navy process of 'catting the anchor'. Once thus secured at the gravity ring the above process can then be performed in reverse order. (As may be imagined, most evolutions with ground tackle contain some element of risk to life and limb.)
Kedges can indeed be taken out slung below twinned lifeboats. The anchor can be put outboard and lowered onto the sea/river bed on such as a cargo derrick. The fall is then buoyed, parted, passed through the lashing spars of the boats, reconnected, the kedge then hauled up to the surface on the ship's gear, secured to the raft on a slipping arrangement, shackled onto the actual warp and finally disconnected from the cargo derrick so that the raft can be rowed out to the intended holding ground.
If in danger of being run down, or to save time or undue effort in worsening weather etc. all moorings can be slipped as an expedient alternative to recovery. A slipped mooring is subject to salvage law unless it has been proprietarily buoyed in which case it categorises as 'lagan' and its recovery becomes subject to contract rather than salvage.
(Any garrulous media-folk out there might care to note the correct use of the term 'slip' apropos 'moorings'. Not to be confused with the routine process of casting off the mooring lines on departure from a wharf or quay, 'slipping the moorings' signifies imperilment, contention and expense. As usual however it doesn't pay to be too dogmatic with these terms – a ship can be secured to a mooring buoy on a slip rope which by definition has to be 'slipped' on departure. Heigh-ho.)
Noel
