An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ancora, which itself comes from the Greek ἄγκυρα (ankȳra).[2][3]
Anchors can either be temporary or permanent. Permanent anchors are used in the creation of a mooring, and are rarely moved; a specialist service is normally needed to move or maintain them. Vessels carry one or more temporary anchors, which may be of different designs and weights.
A sea anchor is a drag device, not in contact with the seabed, used to minimise drift of a vessel relative to the water. A drogue is a drag device used to slow or help steer a vessel running before a storm in a following or overtaking sea, or when crossing a bar in a breaking sea.
- ^ Noel, J V (1989), Knights Modern Seamanship (18th ed.), Wiley, p. 271, ISBN 978-0-471-28948-7, retrieved 15 February 2024
- ^ anchor, Oxford Dictionaries
- ^ ἄγκυρα, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus