How Long Are The Anchors On Navy Ships?

The United States Navy features the largest warships ever constructed, so most of the attention they get is for their size, combat power, and worldwide range. While the U.S. Navy boasts the largest fleet of aircraft carriers and many other powerful surface ships, at the end of the day, they're still objects that float on the water. Just like the naval vessels of old, the best way to keep a modern Navy ship in one place is to use an anchor, and for the most part, the technology hasn't changed all that much over the years.

An anchor is a large, heavy object that holds a vessel in place via a long rope or chain, and the ones utilized by the Navy are truly massive. While the anchor itself is a pivotal piece of equipment, the chain that connects it to a ship is possibly more important because using too short a chain will make the anchor ineffective as it's dragged along, and using one that is too long will allow the ship to move around more than desired. 

The U.S. Navy uses anchor chains that are portioned out to 15 fathoms (90 feet). Each of these lengths is called a shot, and individual shots are connected via detachable links, which collectively total over 1,000 feet in length. They utilize a special color-coding system, which allows sailors to tell precisely how long the combination of shots is simply by looking at the chain. That lets them know how much has been paid out, so it's possible to adjust as needed.

Modern U.S. Navy vessels, such as some of the oldest military ships still in active service, like Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, have massive anchors and shots that allow them to remain in place relatively easily. A single shot contains 57 individual chain links, each weighing a whopping 350 lbs. This makes each shot weigh 20,500 lbs., or 10.25 tons. Twelve shots are needed to hold a single anchor, which weighs 60,000 lbs., or 30 tons, each. Due to the incredible weights involved, machinery is required to deploy and retrieve an anchor and its shots, although operating this can be hazardous.

Carriers typically carry 12 shots, though some have more, which are stored in chain lockers. If all of a carrier's shots are connected to an anchor, the total length measures out to 18 fathoms, or 1,080 feet. While this isn't nearly enough to hold a carrier in place in the middle of the ocean, it's more than adequate to hold position in coastal, non littoral waters. Of course, it's common for these huge surface ships to have two anchors, one situated on the port side and the other on the starboard side.

Each Nimitz-class aircraft carrier typically holds a total of 24 shots and two anchors, and when you combine the weight of them all, you're looking at a collection of equipment that weighs 366,000 lbs., or 183 tons. That's more than the weight of the world's largest production dozer, the Komatsu D575A Superdozer, which is a modern machine that requires an incredible amount of energy to move. If that's difficult to imagine, the anchors and shots weigh as much as 30 average-sized elephants.