There has to be some sailors here!!!
Bad thing to do, yes. But ship designers have taken this into account because it happens time to time; it can even happen by itself in extremely bad weather.
If this drunk dropped the anchor, he knew enough to back off the mechanical brake, lift the “cat’s paw”, and hit the pelican hook latch link with a fair sized piece of something hard enough to get it to release. After that the anchor would fall and the chain would pay or run out of the windlass’ wildcat until all the chain ran out of the chain locker.
The bitter end of the chain is tied to a fitting in the chain locker with some sort of “weak link”; a shackle that is sawed halfway through or sometimes only a strong piece of rope.
So, in all likelihood, the anchor and all of the chain is on the bottom of the Gulf and little or no damage to the ship.
Still it’s hazarding of a vessel and the guy needs to pay the price for his act of idiocy! Just my $0.02.
“The bitter end of the chain is tied to a fitting in the chain locker with some sort of “weak link”; a shackle that is sawed halfway through or sometimes only a strong piece of rope.”
Thanks for the info. I just did a search, and on the USS Abe Lincoln carrier the length of anchor chain is 1,082 feet. Another search said “most of the Caribbean is over 6,000 feet deep”.
So - good news on not dragging bottom and pulling the innards out of the ship. Not so good news on ever finding the anchor.
That makes perfect sense. Thanks for the insight.