“There are different sorts of anchors: bower-anchors, stream-anchors, and kedge-anchors; and they are of different weights; but a best bower-anchor, or, we will call it a sheet-anchor, weighs between four and five tons. It costs as much as four hundred pounds.”
“What a weight, and what a deal of money! It must be hard work to pull it up from the bottom of the sea.”
“It is hard work; but a blue-jacket does not go to sea to blow his fingers; whatever may be the duty required to be done, Jack is ready to do it. The anchor is heaved in by means of the capstan, a very strong massy column of timber, having square holes to receive levers or bars, to turn it round. It is let down perpendicularly through the decks of the ship, and so placed that the men, by turning it round, may perform any labour requiring great strength.”
“When a ship lets down her anchor, there is often a buoy attached to it, that its situation may be known. If this were not done a ship would often entangle her cable by coming too near it. There are many kinds of buoys.”
“The blocks about a ship, for the management of the rigging, are very numerous. I can only show you a drawing of a few of them.”
