Anchoring

This chapter covers the use of the ship’s anchor(s) to anchor at sea and as an aid to manoeuvring and berthing. A successful anchorage requires both good navigation and sound seamanship skills, and readers should familiarise themselves with the Admiralty Manual of Seamanship, or similar, which covers the seamanship aspects of anchoring. It will be assumed throughout this chapter that readers are familiar with professional seamanship terminology for anchoring and seamanship evolutions. Anchoring techniques make use of a number of different circles and radii, which equate to specific functions in ECDIS but by different names. Different ECDIS software and commercial platforms may use different terminology and the navigators MUST ensure that they understand precisely how the ECDIS in their ship operators. Use of the anchor in an emergency is also covered.