# Medieval Ship's Anchors



## Shreddies (Jan 11, 2013)

I was wondering how heavy a ship's anchor is/was in relation to the ship's size, and what anchors were usually made of throughout history. Anyone know?


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## CupofJoe (Jan 12, 2013)

Metal anchors were in use and looked a lot like the traditional "admiralty type" anchor we know of today. These looked a little like a two prong grappling hook that went to the sea floor and a wooden crossbar to help it sink in the right orientation [prongs first]. The metal anchors from the period have been weighed at anything from 400-1200kg and it is known that ships often had multiples of them [up to 6 or 8 but exactly how many seems to be a bit variable...].
It may seem obvious but it really depends on where and how big the ship is...
Those  ship working quiet waters would have different anchors to those on  exposed coasts. The same goes for the sea floor sandy vs rocky. For quite areas sometime a heavy stone or bag of rocks was was enough,  but they were not much use against tides and currents. Stone anchors  with wooden cross-pieces were also used where the cross pieces dug in to  a soft sea bottom [Into the 20C this type was still in use on the Arabian peninsula because it worked well on the sandy sea floors and were cheap to maintain].


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