Chapter XV: Coming to Anchor

Getting ready for port. Coming to anchor,--close-hauled--free. Mooring. Flying moor. Clearing hawse. To anchor with a slip-rope. Slipping a cable. Coming-to at a slipped cable.

GETTING READY FOR PORT.--Get your anchors off the bows, and let them hang by the cat-stoppers and shank-painters. Bend your cables and overhaul a few ranges forward of the windlass, according to the depth of the anchorage and the strength of the tide or wind, and range the remainder that you expect to use along the decks, abaft the windlass. Have the boats ready for lowering, and a spare hawser, with some stout rope for kedging or warping, at hand, coiled on the hatches.

COMING TO ANCHOR.--If you have the wind free and all sail set, take in your studdingsails, make them up and stow them away, rig in the booms and coil away the gear, and have all ready in good season. You may then, as you draw in toward the anchorage, take in your royals and flying jib, furling the royals if you have time. The topgallant sails are next taken in, and the foresail hauled up. The topgallant sails may be furled or not, according to the strength of the wind and the number of hands. If you are before the wind, your mainsail will be hauled up, or, if the sheet is aft, haul up the lee clew-garnet. Get your ship under her topsails, jib and spanker. When near the ground, clew up the fore and main topsails, put the helm down, haul down the jib and flatten in the spanker. If you have too much headway, back the mizzen topsail. Cock-bill your anchor and stream the buoy. When she has lost her headway, let go the anchor. Let hands stand by to give her chain, as she needs it.

If you come into anchoring ground close-hauled, haul in the weather fore and main braces, and clew up. If the wind is light, you may square the fore and main yards before clewing up. This will deaden her way. If the wind is fresh, it would make it difficult to clew up the sails. Haul down the jib, and come to by the spanker, or mizzen topsail and spanker. If the wind is light, she may need the mizzen topsail; if not, it may be taken in, and she may be brought to by the spanker. If she has too much headway or there is a tide setting her in, throw all aback.

MOORING.--A vessel is said to be moored when she rides with more than one anchor, in different directions. The common method of mooring is, when you have come to with one anchor, to pay out chain and let her drop astern until you have out double the scope you intend to ride by. Then let go your other anchor. Slack up the cable of the latter anchor, and heave in on that of the first, until you have the same scope to each anchor. You may also moor by lowering the anchor and lashing it to the stern of the long boat, and coiling away the full scope in the bottom of the boat. You may then pull off and pick out your own berth, and let go.

If you wish to drop your second anchor in any other place than directly to leeward of the first, you may, without using your long boat, warp the vessel over the berth intended for your second anchor.

You should always moor so that you may ride with an open hawse in the direction from which you are liable to the strongest winds. If you have chain cables, you may moor with both cables bent to a swivel just clear of the hawse hole, one chain coming in-board. In moderate weather, and where you are not in a strong tide-way, it will generally be sufficient to let go one anchor, since, if you have out a good scope of chain, you will ride by the bight of it, and it will require a very heavy blow to bring a strain upon the anchor.

In mooring, you should always have a shackle near the hawse-hole, for clearing hawse. If it is just abaft the windlass, it will be convenient in case you wish to slip your cable.

A FLYING MOOR--sometimes called a RUNNING MOOR.--Have both anchors ready for letting go, with double the scope of chain you intend to ride by ranged for the weather anchor, and the riding scope of the lee chain. There are two ways of making a flying moor. One is to clew up everything and let go the first anchor while she has sufficient headway to run out the whole double range. When it is all out, or just before, luff sharp up, brace aback to stop her way, and let go the other anchor. Then heave in on the first and light out on the second, until there is the same scope to each. This mode is almost impracticable in a merchant vessel, where there is but one deck, and where the chain may have to be paid out over a windlass, since the headway would in most cases be soon stopped.

The other mode is, to lay all flat aback, and the moment the headway ceases, let go your first anchor, paying out chain as she drops astern, until double your riding scope is out. Then let go your second anchor and heave in on the first.

CLEARING HAWSE.--When a vessel is moored she may swing so as to get a _foul hawse_; that is, so as to bring one cable across the other. If one cable lies over the other, it is called _a cross_. When they make another cross, it is called an _elbow_. Three crosses make a _round turn_. The turns may be kept out of a cable by tending the vessel when she swings, and casting her stern one side or the other, by the helm, jib and spanker. To clear hawse, trice the slack cable up by a line or a whip purchase and hook, below the turns. Lash the two cables together just below the lowest turn. Pass a line round the cable from outside, following each turn, and in through the hawse-hole of the slack cable, and bend it to the shackle. Unshackle and bend a line to the end. Rouse the cable out through the hawse-hole, slacking up on the end line, and tricing up if necessary. Take out the turns by the first line passed in, and haul in again on the end line. Shackle the chain again, heave taut, and cast off the lashings.

TO ANCHOR WITH A SLIP-ROPE.--This is necessary when you are lying in an open road-stead, where you must stand out to sea upon a gale coming up, without taking time to get your anchor. You must ride at one anchor. Having come to, take a hawser round from the quarter on the same side with your anchor, outside of everything, and bend its end to the cable just below the hawse-hole. Have a buoy triced up forward, clear of everything and carry the buoy-rope in through the hawse-hole, and round the windlass, with three turns, (the first turn being _outside_ the others,) and bend it to the shackle which is to be cast off when the cable is slipped. Have another buoy bent to the end of the hawser which is to be used for the slip-rope.

TO SLIP A CABLE.--When ready to slip, everything having been prepared as above, unshackle the chain abaft the windlass, and hoist the topsails, reefed, if necessary. Stream the buoy for the end of the chain, and that at the end of the slip-rope aft. Take good turns with the slip-rope round the timber-heads, at the quarter. Hoist the fore topmast staysail and back the fore topsail, hauling in the braces on the same side with the cable, so that she may cast to the opposite side. Fill the after yards, and let go the end of the cable. Hold on to the slip-rope aft, until her head is fairly off; then let go, brace full the head yards, and set the spanker.

COMING-TO AT A SLIPPED CABLE.--Keep a lookout for your buoys. Having found them, heave-to to windward of them, send a boat with a strong warp and bend it to the slip-rope buoy, take the other end to the capstan and walk the ship up to the buoy. Take the slip-rope through the chock, forward, and heave on it until you get the chain, where the slip-rope was bent to it, under foot. Make well fast the slip-rope, then fish the buoy at the end of the chain, haul up on that buoy-rope, and get the end of the chain. Rouse it in through the hawse-hole and shackle it. Heave taut, until the bend of the slip-rope is above the water, then take the other end round aft and make it fast at the quarter-port again. Pass in the buoy-rope for the end of the chain, and you are all ready for slipping again.