Why Anchors Don't Work

Tuesday, March 2, 2010 - 04:56 in Physics & Chemistry

Why Anchors Don't Work From earliest times to today, from boat safety pamphlet to engineering treatise on marine architecture: all are agreed that the anchor does the work of keeping a boat or ship from moving. It doesn't.  It can't. Machines can do work, but an anchor is not a machine. A vessel on any body of water is subjected to wind and water forces tending to move it.  In order for it to remain in a well defined geographical area the vessel must in some way oppose those forces.  The notion that any anchor, however designed, can somehow cancel those forces is false according to the laws of thermodynamics. read more

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