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From: (no name) (no email)
Date: Tue Aug 09 2005 - 01:57:09 EDT
In a message dated 8/4/2005 12:57:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
writes:
Marge, what do you think the big merchantmen use? They use a WINCH. .....
As a Merchant Marine officer for 27 years, I can assure you that on every
vessel I served on the anchor was heaved up by a windlass, not a winch.
Every one was very much alike except for size. There were two wildcats, like
pulley sheaves with pockets for the chain links, that handled each anchor
chain. There were also rope capstans on the ends of the horizontal shaft to
handle docklines.
They were always called a windlass, and never called a winch. The winches
on board were everything else that pulled on a line by rolling up the line on a
drum. There were many of them for handling cargo on the type of ship that
uses cargo booms.
There were also capstans which were drums that rotated continously. One
would take three turns around them with a line. When one pulled on the line the
resulting friction on the captstan would pull the line in with all the power of
the capstan. When one would stop pulling, the capstan would continue to turn
but without pulling the line in.
On modern containerships the containers are most often handled by cranes on
the dock (some ships have container cranes). The docklines are handled by rope
reel winches with constant tension hydraulic drives that run continously
while the ship is at the pier. Wire rope was sometimes used but fiber rope was
vastly more popular.
The device used to handle the anchor is still called the windlass.
Norm
S/V Bandersnatch
Lying Gloucester MA
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