The Holding Power of Anchors

G I Taylor

   
The essential principle in the action of all anchors is that a surface set at an acute angle to the ground will dig in if pulled horizontally. In order that an anchor may function properly it must satisfy two conditions. The first is that in whatever position it may fall as it strikes the sea floor, it must begin to dig in as soon as the pull comes on the chain. The second is that it shall remain in the ‘digging in’ position while it is dragged into the ground, or, in other words, it shall be stable in the ground. Up to the present only two essentially different designs have been used, or, if the grapnel is included, three.

In the traditional form, with two flukes and shank and a stock which is longer than the flukes, the stock serves a double purpose. It ensures that the anchor shall fall on the ground in such a position that one of the digging planes or palms will function as soon as the chain begins to drag along the ground; and it also serves, by lying flat on the ground, to keep the palm set at the correct angle as it buries itself.

Phenomena Containing Taylor’s name Taylor – Couette instability Taylor – Proudman theorem Taylor column Taylor dislocations Taylor vorticity transfer theory Taylor–Green problem Taylor microscale Taylor frozen-flow hypothesis Rayleigh–Taylor instability Taylor dispersion Saffman–Taylor fingering From: The scientific legacy of G I Taylor