The city where the best Russian anchors were made. Symbol of hope. What are aircraft carriers based on?

Norman anchors With the fall of Rome, maritime trade and shipbuilding in the Mediterranean declined. The main role in the development of further shipbuilding belongs to the Normans - the North Germanic tribes that lived on the Jutland peninsula and in the southwestern

Unusual anchors In marine practice, situations sometimes arise when it is impossible to use dead anchors. For example, when sailing in ice, the anchor is not lowered to the bottom, it can only be laid in a hole cut in the ice. But the weight of even an auxiliary werp anchor or stop anchor

1 Have anchors always rang? “Wherever the boat roams, and the anchor will be” (Old Pomeranian

Anchors made of stone and wood We are so accustomed to the fact that the anchor is made of iron that the very expression "wooden anchor" hurts our ears. We involuntarily associate the concept of an anchor with the roar of steel chains, with rust on metal corroded by sea water. But no matter how

4 Russian anchors

10 Anchors for small craft Retractable anchors of small weight categories Shipbuilders who design ship, anchor devices, and sailors who use them, have long noticed that the holding force of anchors of the same design varies greatly depending on their weight

10. The first domestic radars In 1932, orders for means of detecting aircraft were transferred from the Military Technical Directorate (VTU) of the Red Army to the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) of the People's Commissariat of Defense (NKO). GAU with the consent of the Main Directorate

"Salt, hemp and wax" - we remember these words from school. This is an uncomplicated list of goods that Ancient Rus' traded. Later, bread, timber, furs and flax were added to them. We are so accustomed to considering old Russia an agrarian power that sometimes we are surprised: really, long before Peter I, Russia exported iron to the foreign market, and iron, which was famous throughout Europe? It was taken in strips and in the form of products: axes, plowshares, etc. The anchors included in this list, made of "bog iron", were famous in the same way as Russian sables. An unacceptable mistake is made by those historians who believe that, they say, metallurgy in our country began to develop since the time of Peter. The Russians knew how to make iron long before him, and as for iron anchors, they were undoubtedly forged even before the baptism of Rus'. This is evidenced by many exhibits collected by local historians, folk epics tell. The emergence of anchor production in Rus' is lost in the mists of time.
Yaroslavl, Vologda, Kazan, Gorodets, Voronezh, Lodeynoye Pole, and many cities of the Urals were once famous for their anchor masters. For example, the anchor craftsmen of Yaroslavl and Vologda forged about a hundred "large two-horned anchors" for the ships of the sea flotilla, built on the orders of Boris Godunov for sailing in the Arctic Ocean.
It is sometimes believed that at one time Tula was famous for anchors. This is mistake. In Tula, they never forged anchors. She is famous for thinner and more elegant forgings. In 1667, when Russia was building its first large ship to sail along the Volga and the Caspian Sea, the Tula craftsmen refused to forge anchors for it. Blacksmiths in the village of Dedinovo, where the Eagle, a three-masted sailboat 24.5 m long, was built, also stated that they themselves did not know how to do this, and the only anchor master in the village was busy making a tongue for the Big Assumption Bell. Blacksmiths called from Kolomna also did not agree to forge anchors, and the craftsmen had to be sent from Kazan. It was they who made two large anchors with rods and four cat anchors for the Orel.
Even before Peter the Great, anchor production was widely developed on the banks of the Volga. For centuries, this craft flourished in the Nizhny Novgorod province. From the travel notes of Russian academicians of painting G.G. and N.G. Chernetsov, who made a trip along the great Russian river one hundred and twenty-five years ago, we learn that anchors were made mainly in Gorodets:
“Gorodets used to be a city and the residence of the princes of Gorodetsky and even had its own bishops. Now it is only a significant village. Forging anchors and bell tongues is a significant craft for the inhabitants. Anchors are made weighing from thirty pounds to eighty pounds. forge one anchor up to twenty thousand poods.
The domestic shipbuilding that unfolded under Peter I, as a result of which Russia received 895 ships, led to the rapid development of blacksmithing. Peter personally established strict rules for testing the iron produced in the country. And soon Russian metal had no equal in quality all over the world.
Anchors for the ships of the Azov fleet, built by Peter in Voronezh, were forged by blacksmiths gathered from all over Russia. By a special decree, Peter forbade them to forge any products other than those related to the fleet, and ordered the monasteries to pay for their work. The forges of the first Russian breeders - Demidov, Butenat, Naryshkin, Borin and Aristov - also had to supply anchors. Later, "state-owned iron factories" were established in the Novgorod and Tambov provinces, and prospecting work began to identify iron ore deposits near Lake Ladoga.
Anchors for the first frigates of the Peter's fleet, which were built in 1702 on the Svir and Pasha rivers, were forged in Olonets (Lodeynoye Pole). The iron obtained from the Olonets "bog ore" was valued in Europe on a par with the famous "Swedish iron" and was famous for its flexibility, good ductility and extreme toughness. In addition, it was easily welded: the clean surfaces of two pieces of iron, heated to the appearance of sparks, were combined into one mass from a hammer blow or strong pressure. And this property is important. Here is a good example. Anchors for the ships of both Kamchatka expeditions of Bering-Chirikov (1725-1742) had to be carried across Siberia on reindeer. Since such a load turned out to be beyond the strength of a fragile animal, the horns were beaten off from the anchors ready for shipment. Parts of the anchor were transported through Siberia separately, and already on the Pacific coast, in temporary forges, the horns were again welded to the spindle. Wooden rods were made, of course, from improvised materials on the spot.
Such anchors made of "swamp iron" were many times stronger than the English ones, because in Russia charcoal was placed in the furnace to make iron, and puddling furnaces were heated with firewood. In England, for the manufacture of iron in the furnace, coal and coke containing sulfur and phosphorus were used, which reduced the quality of iron. The Russian two-weld iron used for the manufacture of anchors was superior in quality to the English three-weld iron. Under the blows of the hammer, the "bog iron" was well riveted, and with the next heating-annealing, its former softness was easily restored. The fact that Russian anchors were in great demand abroad can be judged from many documents of the time of Peter the Great. Here, for example, is a letter from the Russian ambassador to Denmark, Vasily Dolgorukov, to Peter I dated March 8, 1718:
"... There are ship anchors here in Your Majesty's shops, with which the painting is enclosed; there are also cannon machines and buckshot. And since I do not have a decree to sell, I will order to put buckshot and anchors as much as possible on the Yehudiel ship" and I will send it to St. Petersburg, and I will await Your Majesty’s decree when I get it. His Majesty’s Naval Commissioners, the King of Denmark, traded those anchors with me and told me that they had such a need for them that several ships would not be able to go to sea for them. I refused to sell them and said that without a decree I dare not ... ".
The heaviest anchors for large ships of the Russian fleet were then made in Izhora, where the Admiralty Plants were founded in 1719 by Peter's decree. Forging hammers at these factories were driven by water mills.
The high demands Peter made on the quality of the material going to the anchors can be judged by his decree "On testing at iron factories", sent out in April 1722 by the Bergcollegium "to all iron factories where iron is made." In fact, this is a law on mandatory rules for testing and subsequent branding of iron. The first test of strip iron, invented by the king, consisted in the fact that an iron strip was wound around a pillar dug into the ground with a diameter of six inches. This operation was repeated three times (in different directions), after which the strip was inspected, and if it did not show signs of destruction, stamp No. 1 was stamped on it. If the iron survived, stamp No. 2 was stamped on it. On strips that did not withstand either the first or second test, they put stamp No. 3. The sale of strip iron without these stamps was strictly prohibited. To oversee the blacksmiths, Peter established a position - "commissar of iron work." Peter's decree on the testing of iron, despite the primitiveness of the samples, marked the beginning of the struggle for the quality of the metal on a national scale.
Other decrees of Peter associated with anchor production have also been preserved. One of them, dated January 17, 1719, reads in part:
"... send good two people from the anchor foremen, one to the lower Gorodets volost, where there is a large anchor factory, the other to Tikhvin as a master, and with them one blacksmith, and give them a spot with such a decree that no one will have any anchors I sold without their spots, and that they would establish this business in both places.
Peter himself was a good blacksmith. Arriving to inspect the Istets factories, he forged eighteen poods of iron with his own hands in a day. He always treated blacksmiths with great attention and care. For example, when he learned that Maxim Artemiev and his apprentice Gavrila Nikiforov were considered the best anchor craftsmen in the Nizhny Novgorod province, he immediately issued an order to transfer both to the Voronezh shipyard. The first was appointed an anchor master with an annual salary of 12 rubles, and the second - as an apprentice with a salary of 10 rubles. At that time it was a lot of money. In addition, they also received "daily and fodder", that is, in modern language - "per diem". And when the construction of the Azov fleet was completed, they were first sent "to anchor business" to the private iron factories of Butenat, and from 1706 they forged wonderful anchors at the Petrovsky factory.
We learn about the technology of manufacturing anchors in Russia at the beginning of the 18th century from the "Regulations on the management of the Admiralty and the shipyard", issued by Peter on April 15, 1722. "Anchors should be made according to the prescribed proportion of good iron, and look firmly so that the rods are firmly and tightly bound with good iron before they are put into the forge." When heated in the hearth, it was prescribed to carefully ensure that the metal "neither burnt, nor coldly removed, so that it would be tightly welded everywhere and there would be no lack of brewing." The same conditions had to be observed both "in welding the horns to the spindle", and during the "beating on the anvil".
From the anchor master, Peter demanded not just "to manage the work with diligence and good skill," as from other blacksmiths, but "great diligence and extreme art." The anchor master was especially reminded that it was he who should answer if the ship's accident occurred due to the anchor breaking: "Because the whole integrity of the ship consists in what he should give an answer if that is done by negligence."
Under Peter, anchors were subjected to a severe test of strength. The new anchor was first raised to the height of the spindle and thrown with the heel onto the cast-iron beam, then, raising the anchor to the same height, it was again thrown down with the eye and, finally, sideways, in the middle of the spindle, on the gun barrel. If the anchor withstood these three throws, a special mark was stamped on it. Such a test of anchors by throwing became traditional in Russia and remained almost until the end of the last century. Here is how it was carried out in the thirties of the last century at the Ural factories:
"... Anchors to touch it by the ring that has a forearm with a rope and thread that rope into the block that was made for the iron described above, and lifting it up to the very block, lower it, without holding it, onto a cast-iron bar or board three times. And if it resists, then incise on it to the master, where it is made, and the number of the present year and its master and managerial, who, with one sample of the incident, name and weight and the letter P, which means that it has been tried, and give it to the treasury by notch And if the samples do not stand, but show a break or laceration, they should not be accepted, but ordered to be corrected, and after correction, the packs should be tried against the above and, according to the sample, given to the treasury. not to give anything, for they are guilty of doing it properly at once."
In 1963, an old anchor was raised from the bottom of the sea in Ilyichevsk. In addition to the factory brand, the following inscriptions have been preserved on it: Andrey Krotov, Ivan Cherkasov, Alexander Moskvin, Matvey Tyurin. In all likelihood, the first name is the name of the anchor master, the second is the forge manager, the last two are the names of the witnesses who were present when the anchor was tested for strength.
The above excerpt is from the chapter "The Case of Anchors, Hammers, Clamps and Other Things" of the book "Description of the Ural and Siberian Plants". The author of this book is Georg Wilhelm de Gennin (1676-1750), a Dutchman from Amsterdam who has been in the Russian service since 1698. He was an outstanding engineer and metallurgist of his time. He managed the Ural factories for twelve years and was one of the best experts in the mining and metallurgical business of the 18th century. No wonder Academician M.A. Pavlov once called this book an encyclopedia of mining and metallurgy in Russia.
In Russia, since the time of Peter the Great, every ship of the line has been supplied with five anchors. The largest and heaviest, usually the right back, was called a plecht. The second largest, the left one, is a dagliksom, the third is a bay. It was kept stowed under the second crumball behind the daglix, on the port side of the ship. The fourth anchor was called the mooring. It was a spare anchor, and they kept it in the hold behind the main mast. The spindle of this anchor was fastened to the beam, and the paws were buried in stone ballast. The mooring rod, so that it does not interfere with loading into the hold, was laid flat on the bottom flooring. The fifth largest anchor was called toy; it was fastened in a marching manner, like bays, but on the right cheekbone of the ship behind the plecht. In addition to these five anchors, Russian sailing ships could have several verps, the heaviest of which was called a stop anchor.
In the "Explanatory Marine Dictionary" by V.V. Bakhtin, published in St. Petersburg in 1894, there is the term "babai". So in the Astrakhan province they used to call the largest anchor on a seaworthy vessel.
"KING-ANCHOR"
In the middle of the last century, the most reliable anchors in the world were those that were forged in the Urals at the Botkinsky, Serebryansky and Nizhneturinsky plants. Yegor Petrovich Kovalevsky, a mining engineer, a progressive public figure and a brave explorer, became interested in the production of Ural anchors. In 1836, while still a bergeymester of the Ural gold mines, he, together with the engineer Noskov, began to study the technology of manufacturing anchors at the Gornoblagodatsky factories. Having described in detail the process of production of anchors at various factories in the Urals, Kovalevsky came to the conclusion that this process is incomparably simpler and better than in England. Later, he proposed a number of improvements to the administration of the Ural factories, which further improved the quality of products and reduced their cost.
The weight of the Ural anchors often exceeded five tons. The largest battleships of the Russian fleet were supplied with them, the best metal was taken for their forging, they were made by the best craftsmen, they withstood the most severe test of all that ever existed in the history of metallurgy. Each anchor made in those years in the Urals rightly deserves the name "Tsar Anchor", and the few anchors that have survived to this day should be installed on a pedestal as monuments to the remarkable skill of Russian blacksmiths.
At the same time, we note that the Tsar Cannon never fired, and the Tsar Bell never rang, while the Ural anchors served the Russian fleet for a long time and faithfully under Lazarev, Ushakov and Nakhimov.
To give the modern reader an idea of ​​how much work it took a hundred years ago to make an anchor for a battleship, we will cite an excerpt from an article by D. Leontiev, an engineer at the Botkinsky plant. It was published over a hundred years ago in the Naval Collection, No. 5, Volume XXVIII, 1865.

"When assembling the spindle for a 270-pound anchor, the strips are placed four in a row: three 4 1/2 inches wide and one 3 1/2 inches wide, while the width of the row will be 4 1/2 + 4 1/2 + 4 1 / 2 + 3 1/2 \u003d 17 inches. There are eleven such rows in the assembly of the spindle. And since the thickness of the strip iron for a 270-pood anchor is 1 1/8 inches, the thickness of the assembly will be about twelve inches. The seams of each row overlap with the strips of the next row and for this, strips 3 1/2" wide are laid one in a row, now on the right, then on the left side. The length of the assembly (package) is 11 feet 4 inches.
The package assembled for the spindle weighing about 250 pounds, with the end, which is subsequently processed into a sheima, is inserted into the welding furnace. He is given a pitch so strong that it is possible to compress the heated part of the package until the strips that make up the assembly are tightly connected to each other. In this order, the package is boiled and crimped to the middle, after which the bag is wrapped and placed in the oven with the other end, and crimping is also carried out from it to the middle. Of course, due to the uneven elongation of the strips during crimping, the middle of the package becomes convex, and the mutual position of the strips must change, and in order to equalize their length, it is necessary to heat the middle and slightly compress it, and then give a strong boil to boil the strips and connect them into one whole, and from excessive pitch, and sometimes two, the middle of the package burns significantly and comes out thinner.
Thus, to crimp the entire package, you need to lay it in the oven for heating nine to ten times and bring it under the hammer for crimping the same number of times.
When crimping the first half of the package, it is easy to see, by the volume of the crimped place, whether enough iron was taken for the spindle, and if not, then at the other end, before giving it a pitch, wedges of strip iron are stuffed. Sometimes such wedges are hammered with up to thirty pounds.
Crimping pitches give the highest, or, as the masters say, cruel, in order to thoroughly boil the inside of the assembly at the very beginning. If, however, you do not give strong pitches, and thereby do not contribute, if possible, to a close connection of the strips into one whole, then subsequently, when the spindle is forged, it will certainly split, crack along the length, and then nothing remains but to fix the cracks with planks, and this tool is only suitable for the species.
Crimping is followed by forging; it starts from the middle and goes to the ends. Vars are given high. Of course, the blacksmith observes that the spindle is forged to the specified dimensions in length and thickness. The forged spindle for the 270-pound Parker anchor is five feet longer than its assembly and thinner by one-third of the cross-sectional area of ​​the same assembly. The weight of the spindle is only 165 pounds. Consequently, weight loss eighty-five pounds in a frenzy.
For horns, assemblies are made of the same iron that was taken for the spindle, and strips are also arranged in rows in width and thickness, only the packages are made shorter, namely, four and a half feet for a 270-pood anchor; the weight of such an assembly is about 90 pounds.
Of course, the crimping of a package with its small length is performed from two or three vars, but forging to the dimensions determined for the horn is carried out with the assistance of nine vars.
When forged, the length of the horn with weasels extends up to eight feet, and the weight is 65 pounds.
At first, when the Parker's method of making anchors was introduced at the Botkinsky factory, the assembly of the horn was given a wedge-shaped appearance, suitable for the shape of the finished horn, but such an assembly represents unnecessary work, which could not be avoided, as long as the anchor parts were forged under light hammers; when a steam hammer of 4 1/2 tons was installed, the same horns began to be forged from a prismatic assembly, now used at the Botkin plant.
In the forging of the horns, the same procedures and precautions for the actual welding of the strips constituting the assembly are observed, as have been calculated above for the welding of the spindle.
It is not uncommon to see on separate horns and spindles the seams between the stripes that make up the assemblies; this usually happens in those cases when not enough iron is taken for the spindle and horns, and therefore, when forging, in order not to make these parts thinner, they are forged weakly.
The paw is made up of three layers, welded into one. Each layer is prepared from three puddling pieces weighing from 3 1/2 to 5 pounds, connected into one layer. Thus, for the casting of one paw, iron is taken from 35-40 pounds, and after preparing the paw, its weight turns out to be about 30 pounds; the missing weight is waste. The work of the paw is done in the course of eight vars or more.
The horn and paw are joined together by boiling in two furnaces and forging under a steam hammer, after which a complete horn weighing up to 90 pounds is obtained. So, when applying the paw, there was a burn in the gland of 3-5 pounds. Usually, the footnote with the horn should follow in two vars, but this is not always possible and a third var is often required, but more vars cannot be given for fear of burning the paw and the thin part of the horn, called the boletus.
About 45 pounds of strip iron are taken on a chain bracket, and the package made from it is boiled in an oven and drawn into a round grade, leaving the ends of a square shape. In order to make thickenings in which holes could be punched through which a bolt should be inserted through the anchor, bars are welded to the square ends of the prepared iron from two opposite sides, and then, to give these places the agreed shape, they are supplemented with planks from above and below. In this way, the ears of the brace are formed. After that, by means of a bend, a bracket of the required shape is obtained, but only in a rough form, and it weighs up to 25 pounds. This job requires at least thirty vars.
The bolt is forged from puddling pieces, which take about eight pounds, and according to forging it weighs 572 pounds. It takes up to six vars to forge a bolt.
The spindle, horns, bracket and bolt rough forged under a steam hammer enter the anchor forges for finishing, which consists in bringing them more precisely to the established dimensions, in giving them the agreed shape and in preparation for a strong connection with each other.
So, at the spindle, first of all, they trim the sheima. To do this, they give it 15-20 vars, depending on whether it is necessary to put strips on it when it is forged thinner, or you can bring it to the proper size and shape even without strips. Then the shoulders (nuts) are welded for the wooden stock. Up to eight pounds of iron is taken on the shoulders, and in order to weld and trim them to the measure, they give ten vars and the same number of heatings, or the so-called idle vars. The first vars are necessary in the case when you need to remove excess metal or weld the strips, and the second - when the matter is limited only to straightening the spindle. Varov is given about ten.
After straightening, smoothing or burnishing begins, for which the spindle is slightly heated and the scale is knocked off it with balds (two-handed hammers weighing from 7 to 10 pounds), and then ironed with light hammers, and at least ten heatings are also made.
For horns, first they bring the horn to measure and then trim it and the paw, so. The kick horn comes out from under the steam hammer with an uneven, thick and very often imperfectly welded paw, and often it is incorrectly applied to the horn or is narrow, short, wide, long. To correct such a variety of errors, first of all, they give up to eight vars and with the help of them they cut off excess iron on the horn, then, in order to align the boletus, they heat the horn 4-5 times; after that, up to eight vars are needed for straightening the paw and for welding it, where it will be necessary, finally, to cut off excess metal into the paw or to weld the missing metal in the form of laths to it, up to 14 vars are required and then, although the horn and paw have received the proper forms and sizes, but in this state the horn cannot yet go into a footnote with the spindle, it has a rather rough appearance and weasel (the wedge-shaped drawn thick end of the horn) is not fitted to the spindle lock.
Thus, it is necessary to give a paw with a boletus up to 20 more heatings in order to iron them; moreover, often there are either blisters or deep captives on the paw, both of which are cut down and filled with planks, and for such work again vara are needed. After the paw, the toe of the horn is finished off. At the same time, three vars are given when the toe is moderately and well welded, and more vars - if it requires welding with strips or significant trimming of excess metal. Fitting the caress of the horn against the spindle spike is done on welding furnaces, at the steam hammer before the anchor is removed. When the spindle and both horns are ready, proceed to the footnote.
The footnote of the spindle with horns is performed in one step. To do this, the ends of both horns and the spindle, which should be connected into one whole and make up the anchor gate, are laid in three welding furnaces. When all three parts have warmed up to the proper temperature, they are taken out of the furnaces on cranes under a steam hammer and put on the anvil, first the caress of one horn, and on it the spindle spike and then the caress of the other horn, while trying to bring all three parts into mutual agreement as accurately as possible. a position corresponding to the shape of the anchor, the upper horn being cut shorter than an inch by two, in so far as the hammer, striking it directly, lengthens it more than the lower horn. After that, they let the hammer go to the highest rise and rush to strike more often in order, as the blacksmiths say, to beat the var. When the master sees that the upper horn is well welded with the spindle spike, they stop the hammer fight and, raising the anchor, place an iron gasket under the caress of the lower horn and again start the hammer, which presses the tip of the lower horn against the gasket with blows and thereby promotes proper welding.
After that, they start cutting off the excess metal in the collar and at the same time try to bring the horns with the spindle to their normal position, which could be disturbed during forging, and then the anchor is taken to the hearth for final finishing. Anchor bearing at 270 pounds lasts more than a quarter of an hour. Agree, you need to be able to conscientiously perform such an important and cumbersome work.
The anchor that entered the forge is in an unenviable state: the place where the connection of the horns with the spindle (gate) followed, represents deep cracks, cavities or unnecessary elevations of metal; the horns are not in the same plane with the spindle, and their outer contour does not make up that part of the circle that should be formed with a radius equal to 0.37 of the length of the spindle. In addition to these inevitable shortcomings, it often turns out that both the spindle and the horns in the places adjacent to the gate have become much thinner as a result of the strong wars given to them before the removal of the anchor - in a word, they are burned. In order, in such a, one might say, miserable state of the future symbol of hope that came to the forge to give it both a fortress and a decent appearance, a lot of time, labor and costs are required; and, out of necessity, the tedious work begins.
First, the horns and the spindle are straightened, they are bent, pulled, twisted, twisted, and when, finally, these parts along their width are combined with each other in the same sectional plane and the extra contour of the horns, although only partially, will be introduced into the orbit of a normal curve, then, content with and with this, they begin to lay the slats, which achieves the goal of giving the anchor an appearance.
For the 270-pound Parker anchor, the straps are used in various sizes (from 4 pounds to 4 pounds), depending on where they are placed. Thus, heavy planks are mainly placed in the gate and in the places adjacent to it, when these places are either burned or finely forged; smaller strips are placed in the mice, on the forehead, on the horns and on the spindle, according to the amount of missing metal that should be replenished. In general, it is very inconvenient to apply planks to the forehead, in the lobes, in a word, in those places where blacksmiths have to hammer vary from the side, which is why often, where it was enough to put one plank in 3-4 pounds, impose three or four planks of a smaller size and, of course , for each of them in the same place they give successively the anchor vars.
Thus, it should not seem an exaggeration if for Parker's 270-pound anchor they use iron for planks, up to 80 pounds and up to 20 days of time during which the anchor in its various parts and mainly near the gate and on the horns is given at least one hundred and twenty strong vars. not to mention the weak ones. It is boring and annoying to follow this endless patching. Indeed, what is the proper name for such an ungrateful job?
No matter how carefully the slats are superimposed, after all, after them, it is necessary to remove excess metal in some places; this also requires at least thirty vars, and by the way, riveting is also performed.
During riveting, the anchor is heated red-hot, and the hammers are moistened with water. Water, evaporating, repels, as the anchor masters say, welded strips, as a result of which captivity is formed; the latter are cut down and again those places are welded with planks. Of course, captivity is formed in places where the edges of the planks are not welded to the anchor; water can penetrate through such cracks and there it is transformed into steam, and by the force of the latter, the thin parts of the planks will be raised. When riveted, the number of vars extends to 20.
Riveting ends the long torment of the anchor. But gloss for the anchor is necessary when entering into the light. In fact, at the end of the riveting, the anchor in decent condition is taken out of the gloomy factory to the yard to the place of the test; here a bracket and a bolt are fitted to it.
The final finishing of the staple requires up to four vars, and then it weighs 22 pounds.
The finishing bolt weighs 3 pounds 30 pounds; it takes two pitches to finish it. It seems that everything that needs to be said about the fabrication of Votkinsk anchors.

Rice. 47. The shape of the horns and paws of the Ural anchor

This is how anchors were made a hundred years ago. Hell of a job! Such work really required "great diligence and extreme skill," to use the words of Peter's "Regulations." And the anchor masters of the Urals were virtuosos of their craft. Behind the dry, but precise presentation of D. Leontiev, one can feel all the tension of a very long and hard physical labor in smoky forges near puddling furnaces and horns full of heat. It can be boldly stated that in the range of forging products of the last century there is no thing that would be made with such diligence and attention as an anchor. On fig. 47 shows the shape of the horns and paws of the Ural anchor.
The forged anchor was subjected to several tests. The purity of the finish was checked by heating to a dark cherry color, when all the imperfections of the forging show through. Then the anchor was tested for impact - dropped onto an iron plate from a height of 12 feet. If he passed this test, he was hung up and beaten with seven-pound hammers. At the same time, a clear, sonorous sound testified that the forging was dense and there were no shells and cracks in it. If the anchor passed the test, a brand was stamped on it. Now it was necessary to deliver the manufactured and tested anchor to the place of its service - the Black Sea Fleet.
Ready-made anchors were loaded onto row barges and floated down the Kama River, and then along the Volga to the village of Perevoloki. There, the anchors were reloaded from barges to shallow-draught barges, and barge haulers dragged them along the tributary of the Volga, the Kamyshinka River, to the source of the Ilovlya, which flows into the Don. Here winter set in, and anchors were carried along the first path on huge sledges for as much as fifty versts. In the spring, when the rivers opened up, the anchors fell into the Don basin, and only then into the Azov and Black Seas. In Sevastopol or Nikolaev, oak stocks were attached to them.
Now it was necessary to distribute the anchors among the ships. After all, one ship needs an anchor of one weight, and another - another.
In addition to various simple formulas of a purely empirical nature, which have already been described, in the middle of the last century, the Russian navy used a rule derived from comparing the weight of anchors with the dimensions of the ships of the Russian, English and French fleets. The length of the ship between perpendiculars was multiplied by its greatest width with sheathing , and the resulting product was divided by a certain number. It was: for three-deck ships - 40, two-deck - 41, frigates - 42, corvettes - 45, brigs - 50, tenders and schooners - 55, large transports - 45, medium and small transports - 50.

Rice. 48. Russian names of parts of the anchor

The resulting quotient showed the weight of the anchor in pounds. So, for example, the length of the three-deck battleship "The Twelve Apostles" - one of the largest battleships of the Russian fleet - along the gon deck was 211 feet and 9 inches, the width with the skin was 58 feet and 6 inches. The product was 12599.125. This number, divided by 40, showed the weight of the anchor in pounds - 314. The length of the ship "Rostislav" according to the gon deck was 197 feet and 4 inches, the width with the sheathing was 57 feet. The product of 11,246, divided by 41, showed the weight of the anchor - 274 pounds. In fact, on the ship "The Twelve Apostles" the anchors weighed from 283 to 330 pounds, and on the "Rostislav" from 264 to 278 pounds. If the shipyard did not have an anchor calculated by weight, then it was allowed to take an anchor a few pounds more or less, namely, for anchors from 300 to 120 pounds, an increase of up to 9 pounds was allowed, and a decrease in weight - up to 6 pounds. If the weight of the calculated anchor was less than 120 pounds, then the actual weight of the anchor could be 6 pounds less and 3 pounds more than its calculated weight. What is the weight of the largest Admiralty anchor made by Russia? The heaviest Russian anchors of this type currently adorn the Admiralty building in Leningrad. They were forged in 1863 by the blacksmiths of the Nevsky Shipbuilding Plant for the battleships Admiral Sviridov, Admiral Chichagov and General-Admiral.

Considering the enormous difficulties associated with the manufacture of large anchors, it can be argued that the cost of "symbols of hope" some one hundred years ago was prohibitively high. Here is one curious fact taken by us from the book "The first continuation of the review of foreign voyages of the ships of the Russian navy in 1868-1877", volume II, published in St. Petersburg in 1879 (p. 143):
“Although the month of April is considered the best time of the year in Table Bay, nevertheless, heavy rains and fresh winds almost did not stop. "The chimney was raised, the fireboxes were charged and the boilers filled with water. When at 1/2 7 o'clock in the evening the plecht rope burst at 83 fathoms, they immediately began to make steam, and at 1/4 8 o'clock the car was already ready for action. The proximity of the standing behind the stern of a merchant ship, she did not allow to poison the daglix rope, which was only 38 fathoms on the hawse, and the incessantly flying squalls, interspersed with calm, acted on the rope in the highest degree destructively, now stretching it, then again weakening it. another rope burst at 18 sazhens, then immediately, giving full speed to the car, the clipper went out to sea, where it kept under steam and sail until the next noon. rope (1/2 inch thicker than a clipper), hired with the assistance of our consul for the duration of the clipper's stay in Table Bay for 160 pounds. Having no anchors and no longer relying on their ropes (at least in the local roadstead), the commander was forced to accept the sent anchor with a rope for the safety of the ship, despite the high price. Having anchored in the same place, at the first opportunity they began to raise their anchors and ropes, which was successfully completed three days later.
Before moving on to the next chapter, let's clarify the names of the parts of the anchor. established in the time of Peter I and partially forgotten or distorted in our time. These names are given in Fig. 48: spindle (handguard), horn, paw, toe of the horn, collar (forehead), heel, mouse, nuts (shoulders), stock, yoke, sheima, eye, ear - these are the original Russian marine names. They were used by both blacksmiths and sailors. True, at the end of the last century, such an "improved" name of the anchor part as "trend" (collar or forehead) got into Russian books on marine practice. This name came into our marine language from English (trend - bend, bend). Nevertheless, this term has stuck with us.

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Admiralty anchor: on the left with a wooden, on the right with a steel folding stock. 1 - spindle; 2 - horns; 3 - paws; 4 - toe; 5 - trend; b - heel; 7 - stock; 8 - bracket; 9 - stock check.

The old emblem of the French admiral of the galley fleet is interesting. On it, instead of the Admiralty anchor, a four-horned anchor is depicted. Why? Because Admiralty anchors have never been used on rowing and sailing galleys.

The meaning of the anchor as a symbol of hope can be found in aphorisms and winged expressions of literary sources in many countries of the world.

In the English literary language, one can count dozens of idioms and figurative expressions with the word "anchor", which, in addition to their direct meaning, also have a figurative meaning. For example:

Sheet anchor of happiness - a reliable anchor of happiness;

That anchor one "s hore in (at) - to place hopes;

That lay anchor to windward - foresee the danger, take precautions.

The most common English proverb with the word "anchor" - Hope is my anchor - "Hope is my anchor."

In writing, the word "anchor" was first mentioned in Russian in the chronicle of Nestor "The Tale of Bygone Years" - the oldest written monument of the history of our Motherland that has come down to us.

It says that under the terms of the peace treaty dictated by Oleg to the Greeks in 907, the Russians, among other tributes, should receive anchors, sails and tackle for their fleet. The word "anchor" has long been used in ancient Russian Pomor proverbs and sayings: "Faith is my anchor", "Language is the body's anchor", etc.

The Russian classical writers did not forget about the anchor either. For example, I. S. Turgenev wrote: “Our life does not depend on us; but we all have one anchor from which, if you don’t want to, you will never break: a sense of duty.

The stylized image of the Admiralty anchor is an integral part of the emblems, signs and seals of the maritime departments of almost all countries with fleets.

Therefore, the anchor, which has become a symbol of hope since ancient times, eventually became a symbol of navigation in general...

The desire to increase the holding power of the anchor with the same weight led to the installation of paws at the ends of its horns. This innovation was carried out at the beginning of our era. It can be assumed that the paws at the anchor were the first to be made, according to the Roman writer and consul Pliny the Younger, the ancient inhabitants of Etruria - the Etruscans, of whom he was a contemporary. On a marble column in Rome, erected by the emperor Trojan around 114 in honor of the victory over the Dacians, among the many reliefs with scenes from the period of this war, there is an image of this anchor, which is considered classic: almost nineteen centuries have passed, and the design of the anchor has not changed.

In the Middle Ages, only iron anchors with wooden rods were made. Judging by the images on miniature old manuscripts, coins, seals and paintings, it can be said with confidence that the shape of anchors practically did not change during this historical period, with a few exceptions. So, for example, in the middle or at the end of the 14th century, three-, four-, five- and even six-fingered cat anchors appeared on the boats of the Scandinavians. They were very comfortable for the rooks: light and tenacious. During naval skirmishes with enemy ships, the Vikings often used such anchors (much smaller) as grappling hooks. For large ships, such an anchor was of little use, but only four-horned anchors were used on galleys.

Scandinavian shipbuilders made an important improvement on their ships: it was they who were the first to break through the cheekbones of the ship and make haws for anchors.

Using cat-type anchors without a stem, they realized that if a hole was cut in the cheekbones, then when the anchor was raised, it could be pulled inside the boat until it rested against the skin with its paws. The time-consuming manual operation - transshipment of the anchor through the boat, which threatened to break through the bottom of the boat, became unnecessary.

During the Crusades, they began to build cargo-passenger-military ships - naves with a displacement of up to 600 tons. On the naves there were up to twenty anchors weighing from 100 to 1500 kg. This is explained by the fact that in those days the spiers were not yet known, the anchors were raised manually, and if the anchor could not be pulled out, then the rope was simply chopped off.

The size of the ships continued to increase. The main core of the military fleets of the great maritime powers were galleons, carracks and galleasses. The displacement of the Spanish galleons averaged 700 tons. However, among them were giants, such as the famous Madre de Dios with a displacement of 1600 tons and the Sovereign of the Seas - 1530 tons.

Shipbuilders learned how to build reliable seaworthy vessels in other European countries, for example, in France and Holland. But with the anchors for these hulks, the situation was bad. Blacksmiths did not know how to forge reliable, durable anchors for large ships. For their manufacture, hammers were needed heavier than those that could be wielded by the most powerful hammerers in Europe. In those years, such hammers could only be set in motion by the force of falling water. Where there was none, lever hammers were used, driven by the power of several workers or a horse. Their device was very primitive: the woman of the hammer was attached to a rope thrown over a block fixed at the ceiling of the forge. People or a horse pulled the rope. Having raised the hammer head to a certain height, the rope was released on command, and the head fell onto the forging on the anvil.

In the middle of the 15th century, man finally learned to use water mills to drive blacksmith hammers and to use water energy to move bellows, the levers of which he connected to the wheels of water mills.

Although metallurgy and shipbuilding made significant progress in their development by the end of the 17th century, the anchor did not undergo any changes. In principle, he remained the same as we see him on the Trojan column in Rome. True, the anchors manufactured in different countries differed from each other.

For example, in such maritime powers of the 15th-17th centuries as Spain and Portugal, anchors were made with horns curved in the shape of an arc of a circle. The anchors of Holland were almost no different from them, which by the beginning of the 17th century had come out on top in shipbuilding among European countries. Anchors of English production of the XVII-XVIII centuries. differed from the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch anchors in that their horns were made completely straight from the junction with the spindle to the toe of the horn.

Almost similar to the English anchors were the anchors of the Swedes and Danes. Almost the only difference from the anchors of the British was a smaller angle of bending of the horns. The French in this period of time forged anchors, the horns of which were bent into the shape of an arc of a circle or had a kink under the trailing edge of the paws.

Anchors with straight horns were also forged in Russia. They were replaced by simpler anchors with rounded horns and a spindle. Over time, the number of anchors on large warships increased to ten, and each of them had a specific name, purpose and place on the ship.

By purpose, the anchors are divided into anchors (in the bow) - to hold the vessel in the parking lot and auxiliary (in the stern) - to turn the vessel at anchor, hold the vessel with a lag to the wind (stop anchors, verps).

The largest anchor of a sailing ship - the right anchor - is called plecht. In the sailing fleet, the plecht was the standard for calculating the mass of the remaining anchors of a given ship, each of which was lighter than the plecht by a certain part.

The heaviest of the auxiliary anchors - the stop anchor - was designed to hold a vessel with a displacement of over 800 tons in a certain position relative to a wave, wind or current. The stop anchor was usually much lighter than the anchor and was located in the stern of the ship. Ships with a displacement of 800 tons or less were equipped with a werp anchor. This anchor is used as a landing anchor in case of its loss or in emergency situations, for example, to remove the vessel from the shoal, move it to another place in the absence of progress, etc. In these cases, the verp is brought on boats from the stern of the vessel and dumped right place.

On the starboard side of the sailing vessel there is a spare anchor toy (toy anchor). It was used in cases where the ship lost both anchors and it was required to additionally give up the third anchor. Toy was placed behind the right anchor and belonged to the ship's anchors of small size. The left anchor of the ship is called daglix. He belonged to the anchors of medium size. The daglix anchor rope was called dagliks-tou (dagliks rope). In addition, in the hold of the main hatch there was a large spare anchor - a mooring line. Its spindle was lashed to a post supporting the cockpit beam, and its paws were buried in stone ballast. For convenience, this anchor was stored without a rod, which was attached to it as needed.

Centuries-old experience has developed a number of rules and formulas, according to which it was possible to very accurately determine the required mass of the anchor for a ship under construction.

One of these rules was: the weight of the main, anchor anchor, on which the ship was firmly planted (from where its name came from - anchor), on sailboats is calculated so that the weight of the anchor, expressed in pounds, exceeds in digital terms the displacement of the ship, expressed in tons . And the thickness of the anchor hemp rope was determined on the basis of: half an inch of its thickness per foot of the width of the ship's deck along the midship frame.

But in the book of the Frenchman Bourdet de Vilguet, which is called “Marine Science, that is, the experience of the theory and practice of managing a ship and fleet by the military, which he translated from the French book with the addition of many necessary explanations and actions, was published by Nikolai Kurganov, a major in both mathematical and navigational science professor. Published in St. Petersburg at the Imperial Academy of Sciences. 1774 "- in the section" On the size of anchors "it is said that in order to determine the mass of the largest plecht-anchor," it is necessary to take 2/3 of the width of the ship and multiply it cubically, and divide the product by 33, because this proportion is Dutch, and Dutch pounds in the Russian pud 33. The quotient of division is the weight of the plecht-anchor in pounds. Daglix anchor weighing 9/10 plecht. Toy anchor in 9/10 daglix. Half the weight of the plecht and daglix, taken together, will be the weight of the mooring anchor. A large verp is 2/3 the weight of a daglix, a medium one is 2/3 or 1/2, and a small verp is 1/2 the weight of a large verp.”

In the 17th century in the English navy, the mass of the largest ship was taken at the rate of 2/3 of the total mass of all its anchors. There were also "purely Russian" rules that were used by domestic shipbuilders:

- The weight of the anchor in pounds should correspond in numerical terms to 1/4 of the area of ​​the submerged part of the midships of the ship, expressed in square feet.

- To establish the weight of the anchor, corresponding to the size of the ship, it is necessary to multiply the midship area by 3 and, having reduced the resulting product by 1/6 of its part, take the result as the weight of the anchor in pounds.

- The weight of the plecht, expressed in pounds, must exceed in numerical terms the displacement of the ship, expressed in tons.

Nowadays, shipbuilders use the tables of classification societies to select the mass of the anchor - the Register of the Russian Federation, the Lloyd's Register, Bureau Veritas, etc.

These tables are calculated according to formulas that, depending on the known displacement of empirically calculated coefficients, make it possible to determine the mass of the dead anchor in kg.

It must be said that the mass of the anchor, calculated by these formulas, is always close to the mass determined by the above rules. Experience is experience!

From the moment the first metal anchors appeared on ships to the present, sailors have been worried and worried about their strength. Very often the life of sailors depended only on the strength of the connection between the horn and the spindle. Most shipwrecks near the coast occurred precisely because of a broken horn at the junction with the lower part of the spindle.

Analyzing the rather frequent cases of accidents and shipwrecks near dangerous shores that occurred in the English fleet at the beginning of the 19th century, one of the officials of the royal shipyard in Plymouth, Richard Pering, came to the conclusion that the main reason for these accidents was the insufficient strength of English-made anchors. In a note addressed to the first lord, Pering claimed "... that some mistake was made in the technology of their manufacture ...". The main drawback, in his opinion, lay in the fact that not every anchor master was able to properly weld the outer and inner bars that make up the assembly of the spindle or anchor horns. However, the report of the official of the Plymouth shipyard was ignored. But he didn't give up. At his own peril and risk, Pering did a thorough technical study of the design of anchors - English, French, Russian, Dutch. And in 1815, he asked the Admiralty to consider and test his anchor. But this request was also ignored. And English ships continued to suffer accidents due to bad anchors. Only seventeen years after its manufacture, Pering's anchor was delivered to the naval base at Chatan. In appearance, it was an ordinary anchor of two and a half tons, differing from its counterparts only in shorter and thicker horns and a spindle having an elliptical (instead of square) section along its entire length. After the most severe tests of its strength, the members of the commission had no choice but to admit: the anchor, invented by a simple clerk, turned out to be stronger than the anchors for "Her Majesty's fleet", and Richard Pering was granted a patent or, as they said then, a "privilege" for his invention .

What was the secret of the increased strength of the Pering anchor? The innovation was that instead of the bar iron commonly used for making anchors, Pering used iron strips from 3 to 10 inches wide with a thickness of 1/5 and 1/7 of the thickness of the spindle. This gave him the opportunity to better weld the spindle and horn assembly. Pering also changed the proportion of the anchor: the spindle and horns became shorter and thicker, and the spindle section, as already shown above, became elliptical.

A significant drawback of the new anchor was the very laborious work of its manufacture: the hand hammer is too weak, and the steam hammer is inconvenient.

That is why, ten years after the appearance of the Pering anchor, the English Admiral William Parker proposed a new anchor to the Admiralty. He simplified the technology of connecting the horns to the spindle and changed the basic dimensions of the anchor. It was this anchor that was recommended in 1852 by a special Committee formed under the English Admiralty as the optimal anchor type standard for use on warships and merchant ships of the British fleet. This decision was preceded by special comparative tests of many anchors of other designs, which were exhibited at the Great Royal Exhibition held in London.

Entering the Parker anchor in the test reports, the members of the Committee called him the "Admiralty Pattern Anchor" (Admiralty Pattern Anchor). Hence its modern name "Admiralty anchor". Old anchors of this type, but with straight horns and a long spindle, the British began to call "anchors of the old drawing with a long spindle" or "old simple" (old plain), or long spindle (long shanked).

The name "Admiralty anchor" very quickly and firmly entered into use in the English fleet, and from where it migrated to other fleets, including the Russian one. Since then, it has become a tradition: the Admiralty anchor.

An unacceptable mistake is made by those historians who believe that metallurgy in our country began to develop from the time of Peter. The Russians knew how to make iron long before him, and as for iron anchors, they were undoubtedly forged even before the baptism of Rus'.

Even before Peter the Great, anchor production was widely developed on the banks of the Volga. For centuries, this craft flourished in the Nizhny Novgorod province. Yaroslavl, Vologda, Kazan, Gorodets, Voronezh, Lodeynoye Pole, and many cities of the Urals were once also famous for their anchor masters. The names of good anchor masters were known far beyond the cities where they worked. In 1667, when Russia was building its first combat sailing ship, the Eagle, blacksmiths in the village of Dedinovo and from Kolomna did not agree to forge anchors, and the craftsmen had to be sent from Kazan.

Scheme of the Russian anchor of the Dutch sample of the Petrine era

The domestic shipbuilding that unfolded under Peter I, as a result of which Russia received hundreds of ships, led to the rapid development of blacksmithing. Peter himself was a good blacksmith and he always treated blacksmiths with great attention and care. But the demand from them was great. From the anchor master, Peter demanded not just "management of work with diligence and good skill", as from other blacksmiths, but "great diligence and extreme art." The anchor master was especially reminded that it was he who should answer if the ship’s accident occurred due to the anchor breaking: “Because the whole integrity of the ship consists in what he should give an answer if that is done by negligence.” In order to increase the reliability of the anchor and protect the ship from an accident, under Peter they were subjected to a severe test of strength. In addition, the best iron was used for the manufacture of anchors, which was superior in quality to English. That is why Russian anchors were in great demand abroad.

What was the form of Russian anchors in the Petrine era? In the domestic practice of shipbuilding of that time, Dutch methods prevailed, and Peter ordered the anchors "to be made according to the Dutch drawing", that is, with horns curved in the form of an arc of a circle. In accordance with the “Regulations on the management of the Admiralty and the shipyard” issued by Peter on April 15, 1722, the anchors were supposed to be made of the approved proportion of good iron and looked firmly so that the rods were tightly and tightly connected with good iron before they were put into the forge. When heated in the hearth, it was instructed to carefully ensure that the metal "neither burnt, nor coldly removed, so that it would be tightly welded everywhere and there would be no lack of brewing." The same conditions had to be observed both “in welding the horns to the spindle”, and during “beating on the anvil”. Anchors for large ships of the Russian fleet were made in Izhora, where in 1719, by decree of Peter the Great, the Admiralty Plants were founded. The forging hammers in these factories were powered by water wheels. In Russia, since the time of Peter the Great, every ship of the line has been supplied with five anchors.

In addition to the Dutch-style anchors, under Peter I, other anchors were also made. It is known that ten years before his death, Peter began to replace the Dutch shipbuilders who worked in Russian shipyards with English ones. That is why in Russia the "anchors of the English drawing" - with straight horns - have become widespread. By the middle of the 18th century, the production of anchors in Russia had reached its perfection. By this time, we had developed our own national type of anchor, differing in its proportions from the anchors of the Dutch, British and French. After the death of Peter I, the heaviest anchors were forged at the Botkinsky plant: they weighed up to 336 pounds (that's almost 5.5 tons!). The largest battleships of the Russian fleet were supplied with them, the best metal was taken for their forging, they were made by the best craftsmen, they withstood the most severe test of all that ever existed in the history of metallurgy.

This is what Russian anchors looked like from the middle of the 18th century to the beginning of the second half of the 19th century.

Russian anchor, 1761, found in 1968 in Krondshtat.

Before proceeding with the assembly of the parts of the anchor, a life-size drawing of it was made and patterns were made from it. All dimensions of the finished anchor had to exactly match these patterns. Until 1838, at all factories in the Urals, anchors were made according to the so-called "Russian method", and later - according to the methods of Pering and Parker. Works on the manufacture of large anchors in the XVIII-XIX centuries. all over the world included the following processes: the assembly of individual parts of the anchor from iron bars or plates, their welding in furnaces or furnaces, finishing under the hammer, the footnote of the spindle with horns and the final finishing of the welded anchor.

Russian names of parts of the anchor: 1 - spikes (shoulders, "nuts"); 2 - stock; 3 - ring (eye); 4 - ear; 5 - sheima; 6 - yoke; 7 - spindle (forearm); 8 - paw; 9 - horn; 10 - heel; 11 - collar (forehead); 12 - blade; 13 - toe; 14 - mouse.

The manufacture of such an anchor resulted in a truly hellish labor. We can safely say that in the list of blacksmith products of the last century there is no thing that would be made with such diligence and attention as an anchor. Each anchor made in the Urals rightfully deserved the name "Tsar Anchor", and each of the found Ural anchors is worthy of being installed on a pedestal, just as they did with the "Tsar Cannon" and "Tsar Bell", although the first never fired, and the second never rang, while the anchors of the Urals served the strong Russian fleet for a long time and faithfully under Ushakov, Lazarev and Nakhimov. What is the mass of the largest anchor made in Russia? There is an opinion that the heaviest Admiralty anchors in Russia were made for the launching of the battlecruisers Borodino, Izmail, Kinburn and Navarin. These, huge for that time, ships with a displacement of 32,500 tons were launched (but unfinished) from the stocks of the Baltic Shipyard and the New Admiralty Plant in 1915-1916. Anchors, weighing almost ten tons, had wooden rods.

Considering the enormous difficulties associated with the manufacture of large anchors, it can be argued that the cost of "symbols of hope" a hundred years ago was prohibitive. For example, at the Botkinsky plant, a peck of anchor cost the treasury (with overhead costs) 4 rubles 99 kopecks. Thus, the anchor, for example, on the battleship "Twelve Apostles" weighing 330 pounds cost about 1650 rubles. In those days, big money! ..

The development of the fleet, especially the increase in the size of ships and the desire to get rid of bulky devices for fastening anchors with rods in the bow of ships, required the creation of anchor designs that are easy to handle when fastened in a stowed manner and have increased power. In the last quarter of the 19th century, numerous types of anchors appeared. Almost all anchors are made with swivel legs and without a stem. In England in 1885, the Admiralty conducted a series of tests and experiments to determine the best anchor. In 1891, the English Admiralty tested the anchors of Ingefield, Hall, Byers, and others. They were given from the same ship in turn, and the place of fall was marked with a buoy. Then the machine worked at an average speed back for twenty minutes, during which the diver followed the maneuver in the water and determined the position of the anchor. This time the preference was given to Captain Hall's anchor, which dug deep into the ground as it was dragged through the pound only a few feet.

In the 70s of the last century, the requirements for anchors and anchor chains around the world were already determined by state standards and rules of marine classification societies: Lloyd's Register - in the UK, Bureau Veritas - in France, North German Lloyd - in Germany, the American Bureau of Shipping - in the USA, the Russian Register - in Russia. Without the approval of these organizations, not a single anchor design that appeared was accepted for mass production. Of the two thousand patented anchors, no more than a hundred types were embodied in metal. In Russia, the Hall anchor was adopted as the most common anchor for large warships and cargo-passenger ships.

Hall anchor: 1 - spindle; 2 - paws; 3 - tides; 4 - bracket.

True, several anchors of increased holding power have been patented in our country. The most original cast structures were created in 1943-1946 by the Soviet engineer I. Matrosov. In this anchor, the functions of the rod are performed by protrusions on the paws. Repeated tests on the magnitude of the holding force clearly showed its undeniable advantages in comparison with the Admiralty and Hall anchors on various types of soil. The manufacturing technology of the Matrosov anchor is no more complicated than the manufacturing technology of the Hall anchor. Therefore, it is more than strange why this heavy anchor in its cast version did not go into mass production.

Anchor Matrosov: 1 - spindle; 2 - spindle axis; 3 - stock; 4 - stem flange; 5 - paw; 6 - bracket.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, heavyweight anchors for our nuclear-powered icebreakers and large-capacity dry cargo ships and tankers were produced at a plant in Nikolaev. The weight of the anchors necessary for arming a particular ship is determined based on its cargo capacity, and for warships, depending on the displacement. Thus, eighteen-ton anchors were installed on the first Soviet supertankers of the Krym type with a cargo capacity of 150,000 tons. With a displacement of the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser (TAKR) Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union N. G. link anchor chain - 66 kg. Each such link is made of a steel bar with a diameter of 82 mm, in other words, an anchor chain of 82 mm caliber.

After a long voyage, the command given from the main command post - "Stand in place, anchor" - sounds like music to the crew. This means that there will be an early meeting with relatives and friends, that the sailor will again feel solid ground under his feet, that sleepless nights and a continuous struggle with the ocean will end, which at any moment can become furious and destroy the ship.

The history of the plant, in a good way, deserves a separate story, if only out of respect for the enterprise, which began with the forging of anchors, and then within its walls produced steamboats, steam locomotives, the first Soviet excavators and ballistic missiles. Oil and gas equipment, machine tools, household appliances - who said that the Russian industry is dead? Did she die after all?) Well, Topol-M and Bulava also gather here, in an inconspicuous town far from the main roads.

Every single one of St. Petersburg residents and guests of the northern capital is well acquainted with the work of factory artisans, even if they don’t know about it: it was they who made and installed the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. When the question of the spire arose, the emperor was informed that it could only be made in England or at the Votkinsk plant, and the Russian craftsmen took half as much for the work as the British specialists had asked for.
Votkintsy will definitely show you the spire of their Annunciation Cathedral, hinting - it looks like it, doesn't it?


A legend is connected with the foundation of the church at this very place, developing the motive of confrontation between paganism and Orthodoxy, traditional for the Vyatka, Udmurt region. The legend was told by the archpriest of the Annunciation Cathedral A.I. Chernishevsky: “On the hill where the Cathedral of the Annunciation, they (the Votyaks) had a tent, i.e. a strong barn with a floor and ceiling, where they kept hay tools, provisions, honey from the boards. Here, according to the old people of this village, for ten years before the founding of the plant, from time to time they began to hear a rumble, as if from a ringing of a bell, which had never happened before. Then the Votyaks began to explain that there would once be a Christian church here and crush their sanctuaries, where it was so convenient for them to offer sacrifices to Keremet" (VEV , 1863, No. 2, p. 588)

The symbol of the city, directly related to the history of the plant.

Just a discovery for myself, dug up on the Votkinsk website:
“The first monument on the territory of Udmurtia, reflecting factory production, was a 167-pound anchor, made at the Votkinsk plant in 1837 for the Black Sea Admiralty. The heir to the All-Russian Throne, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich (future Emperor Alexander II), took part in the forging of the anchor, as evidenced by the inscription carved between the paws of the anchor: "His Imperial Highness the Sovereign, Heir to the All-Russian Throne, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich honored to forge with his own hands an anchor weighing 167 pounds . May 22, 1837". On the other side of the anchor was carved the inscription: "Delan under the mining chief Lieutenant Colonel Tchaikovsky, the manager of the plant, Major Romanov and commission agent of the Admiralty Department Alekseev."

It was decided to leave the anchor at the Votkinsk plant as a monument. The project of the monument was carried out by the manager of the plant V.I. Romanov. The monument was solemnly opened on June 16, 1840. His Grace Neophyte, Bishop of Vyatka and Slobodskoy, having performed a prayer service with the cathedral of the clergy, consecrated the monument.

"Monument" Anchor "". Drawing. Author: Vasily Vasilyevich Nepryakhin. Paper, watercolor, ink. 1859 (1860?) In the lower right corner of the picture is the inscription: "July 25, 1859". On the back of the drawing there is an inscription in ink: "Drawed by the clerk Vasily Vasilich Nepryakhin."

"The anchor rested on a cast-iron pedestal, hung on a rod with chain ropes, surrounded by a very elegant lattice, divided into several parts by columns of the same cast-iron, on which double-headed eagles with spread wings sat. On two opposite sides of the pedestal, the following inscriptions from gilded letters read: "His Imperial Highness the Sovereign Tsesarevich, Heir to the All-Russian Throne, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolayevich honored to forge an anchor with his own hands at the Troitsk anchor factory when visiting his Kamsko-Votkinsky factory on May 22, 1837 "(extract from the Izvestiya of the Sarapul Zemstvo Museum. Issue 2. Sarapul. Printing house N.E. Onchukova, 1912).

The anchor, which was one of the main items in the nomenclature of forging products of the 19th century, served the Russian fleet for a long time and faithfully under Ushakov, Lazarev and Nakhimov.

62 percent of the total number of anchors manufactured in the 19th century at 24 Ural factories accounted for the Votkinsk factory. In terms of quality, Votkinsk anchors (produced at the Votkinsk plant by decree of Catherine II since 1779) were unmatched, they were supplied to the largest battleships of the domestic fleet. The outstanding naval commander, Admiral P.S. Nakhimov, who tested the anchors of the Votkinsk plant on the Black Sea in October 1847, noted that the anchors "turned out to be completely appropriate for their purpose."

In 1849, the Russian maritime department confirmed that the anchors made at the Votkinsk plant "deserved full approval and turned out to be the most excellent." Votkinsk anchors were honored to stand on pedestals in the years. Sochi and Votkinsk. The Maritime Museum of Klaipeda exhibits a 137-pound anchor, forged at the Votkinsk plant in 1803. During the years of Soviet power, the monument, to the creation of which the tsar himself had a hand, was melted down. However, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Votkinsk plant, it was restored in the same place (a similar anchor can be seen on the territory of the plant itself).

The Votkinsk anchor today is not only a city insignia, but also a Russian one. Five years ago, a local exhibit passed a competitive selection in an international project, where the main symbols of our country were determined. Several museums from Udmurtia also took part in the competition, including our Museum of History and Culture. Votkinsk museum workers, as an object from their funds, most closely corresponding to the image of Russia, chose the drawing of the clerical servant Vasily Vasilyevich Nepryakhin "Monument" Anchor ", made in 1859, in the year of the 100th anniversary of the Votkinsk plant."

Monument of the Soviet era, Yubileiny Palace of Culture.

In the life of a sailor, anchor and land are inextricably linked. The beginning of each campaign begins with raising the anchor, the campaign ends with anchoring the ship.

After shooting from anchor, when leaving the base (as well as when entering it!) Or when passing bottlenecks, the anchors are always ready for immediate return in order to warn the ship from fatal surprises. After all, it is worth refusing to steer, and in one minute the ship may be on the coastal rocks. The threat of a collision with a ship entering the base is not ruled out, when even the most timely maneuver by changing the speed and course is not able to prevent trouble, and only given anchors are able to extinguish the inertia of the course and avoid an inevitable collision.

Before the appearance of echo sounders on ships, when the process of measuring depths with a manual lot was lengthy and did not allow making the right decision when they were rapidly decreasing, especially when navigation took place in poor visibility in areas abounding in shoals, bottlenecks and banks, experienced commanders pitted the anchor at 15 20 meters to timely detect navigational hazards.

But as soon as the ship enters the open sea and there is no danger on its way, the anchor chains are completely retracted into the chain box, and the anchors themselves into the hawse - special oval or round holes in the sides, reinforced around the entire circumference with a strong casting. To prevent the anchor from spontaneously giving up, a special stopper is superimposed on the anchor chain.

Anchor is one of the ingenious inventions of mankind, which can be put on a par with an ax, a plow, a wheel, a sail and others.

Of course, this invention is international, very important and is an integral part of every ship. Nowadays, for example, according to international rules, the absence of even a spare anchor (not to mention those that are supposed to be in the hawse) does not give a sea vessel the right to go to sea. How important the anchor is for the safety of the ship is understood not only by experienced sea wolves, but also by young cadets who are just preparing for a captain's career.

In the oldest naval school in Germany with more than a hundred years of tradition - Wustrov - at one of the navigational exams shortly before the First World War, the examiner interrogated one of the cadets with prejudice.

What will you do if the ship loses control in a severe storm near a navigational hazard? - he asked.

The navigator candidate replied:

I'll give you the anchor.

What if the anchor chain breaks? The examinee is not embarrassed:

Then I'll give up the emergency anchor. However, the pedant in the starched collar still does not give up:

What if you lose him too?

At this point, the candidate lost all patience:

Then it remains for me to take care of clean pants! ..

“The anchor in the past was a very ingenious invention of its kind. At least its size serves as proof of this - there is no other object so incommensurably small in comparison with the huge task it performs! - such an assessment was given to the anchor by the writer and connoisseur of ships Joseph Conrad. He called it "a device that has been created over the centuries, brought to perfection, flawlessly meeting its purpose."

The principle of its design, developed several thousand years ago, is rightfully considered a classic and continues to be used in any anchor design today.

According to scientists, shipping originated at least six thousand years ago. Ever since primitive man built his first "ship" - a raft or a dugout boat connected from tree trunks, he realized that it was not always possible to stop the ship by resting a pole on the bottom, hold on to seaweed, cling to a stone or tree growing on the shore . After all, sometimes it was necessary to stop in the middle of the river or away from the seashore, for example, for fishing.

Ancient anchors; a, b - stone; c, d - wooden

Sometimes a primitive man used leather bags stuffed with stones tied to a vegetable cable as an anchor.

The inconvenience of such anchors is obvious: the stones slipped out of the cable loop, and the bags got soaked and torn.

Finally, someone thought of hollowing out a circular groove in the central part of the anchor stone. This made it possible to more firmly fix the anchor cable on the stone. According to the Italian archaeologist A. Fioravanti, the appearance of these anchors dates back to the Neolithic period, approximately 4-3 millennium BC.

Anchor stones of Roman triremes

Basket with stones

During the development of the slave-owning society, the states with access to the Mediterranean basin already had a large fleet with fairly large rowing and row-sailing vessels. The design of the stone with stakes could no longer satisfy the sailors in terms of the magnitude of the holding force.

The first anchors that met this requirement were, paradoxically, wooden. In essence, these are hooks made of very hard wood that sinks in water. If it was possible to find a trunk of a small tree with a bough extending at the right angle, the anchor was made from a single piece of wood. More often, the design consisted of two pieces of wood, interconnected by leather straps or animal tendons. But such a one-horned anchor, even weighted with stones, often lay flat on the ground and did not hold. Therefore, in ancient times, the position of anchor diver was established on ships. At the moment when the vessel, under the influence of wind or current, began to drift and approach the navigational danger, the diver jumped overboard and, carried by the weight of the hook, sank to the bottom. Here he had to direct the anchor with a horn into the ground. When the rope was pulled, the horn burrowed. After that, the swimmer surfaced and climbed onto the ship. The holding power of such anchors turned out to be much higher than that of anchor stones and crosses weighted with stones. But the diver could only anchor hooks at shallow depths. And how to keep the ship at a great depth?

Someone thought of making another horn at a wooden hook with a crossbar. Now, when the rope was pulled, the crossbar served as a lever, turning the anchor over to the end of one of the horns, which was buried in the ground. This is how wooden anchors appeared, the principle of operation of which is rightfully considered classical and continues to be used in the construction of employees and to this day admiralty anchors. According to scientists, their homeland is Southeast Asia, the time of appearance is the second millennium BC, the inventors are the Chinese, Malays and other sailing nations of this region.

These anchors have two horns, a spindle and a crossbar perpendicular to the plane of the horns. It was that crossbar, which was later called the stock, that replaced the work of the diver: the anchor, having fallen to the bottom, always rests on one of the ends of the stock and the base of the horns. This position of the anchor is unstable and as soon as the traction force on the rope arises, the anchor turns over to the end of one of the horns and begins to sink into the ground until the spindle takes a horizontal position.

Anchors-hooks of sailors of the Ancient East

In the most distant times, from about the 10th century BC, anchor stones became ritual, ritual objects. So, in 1961 in Saqqara (Egypt) during the study of the mausoleum of Merukka - the caretaker of the royal pyramids - an anchor stone of a pyramidal shape was found in the central hall. According to some scientists, sacrificial animals were tied to such anchors. Near Mars Gavasis on the coast of the Red Sea, a place for sacrifices in the open air was found - an altar made of anchor stones, which dates back to the 2nd millennium BC. e.

Here they are, the ancestors of the Admiralty anchor!

Let us remember how dependent on the wind and waves were the ancient navigators! How many times their imperfect, unstable ships, sailing mostly only with a fair wind, became victims of storms. Fragile ships drifted near dangerous reefs and shoals at the behest of the wind and the prevailing currents. In such cases, all the hope of the sailors in trouble was placed on the "sacred" anchor - the largest and heaviest of all on the ship. They were used only when the ship was threatened with imminent death.

Sailors of antiquity were very pious and superstitious. Therefore, in order to give the “sacred anchor” strength to fight the evil spirits inhabiting the sea, its manufacture was completed with a special religious rite. In ancient Greece, for example, after the master finished work, the anchor was solemnly transferred to the temple of Zeus. There, for a whole week, magnificent honors were solemnly paid to the anchor, incense was smoked, prayers were said, sacrifices were made... death. A standard brand-motto was knocked out on the stock: "Zeus is God Almighty and Savior."

In memory of the former meaning of the "sacred" anchor in Latin, there is a popular expression: "Sacram anchoram solvere" - "Be saved by the sacred anchor", that is, resort to the last resort.

With the development of iron smelting technology, the anchor began to be made of iron, although the rods could be both metal and wooden. Both Greek and Roman iron anchors usually had two eyes. The second eye was brought in through the thickened lower part of the horns. The purpose of this eye is interpreted in different ways. There is a second eye or just a hole on many modern cast anchors. A buoyrep was attached to it - a strong end with a float-buoy, which was made of cork and made it possible, in case of separation of the anchor rope (anchor chain), to pull the anchor by the buoyrep. The ancients were more frugal than modern sailors! They knew the value of their anchors and literally prayed for them. Indeed, in the 7th-2nd centuries BC. iron was valued on a par with silver and cost 120 times more than copper, which came across to people in nuggets. For average shipowners, the anchor cost a tidy sum. In ancient anchors, two eyelets were made. The lower eye, some scientists assure, served to fasten the anchor at the side.

One of the anchors found in 1932 in Italy on Lake Nemi is a forged iron anchor. It consists of three bars of soft iron tightly bound together. Weight - 545 kilograms, spindle length - 3.5 meters. Anchor rod 2.7 meters long, removable. It was inserted into a slot at the upper end of the spindle and fastened with a flat iron pin. There are no paws on the horns. It is impossible not to be surprised by the accuracy of its proportions, the symmetry in the purity of the forging.

A find at the bottom of Lake Nemi. Wooden and iron anchors of the "pleasure galleys" of Emperor Caligula

Both anchors were intended for two rowing ships - the giants of the ancient world, which had impressive dimensions: 73 meters long and 21 meters wide. True, these were not transport or warships, but the so-called "pleasure galleys", built at the very beginning of our era by order of the Roman emperor Caligula, perhaps the most wasteful and power-hungry emperor of the Ancient World. Unfortunately, these ships were burned by the German fascists during the Second World War...

According to scientists, the appearance of the anchor in the form in which we imagine it belongs to the 5th century BC. e., however, regarding the name of its inventor, the opinions of researchers differ. Pliny, for example, attributes the invention of the anchor to the Greek Eulampius (?), others claim that King Midas invented it.

Probably, immediately after the appearance of a two-horned anchor with a stem, its still far from perfect design became a symbol of navigation, distant wanderings, and maritime trade. The sailors of the ancient world, having made sure that the anchor more than once turned out to be their only salvation in trouble, began to consider its image a symbol of hope. In the art of Ancient Rome, an anchor is one of the attributes of an allegory of joy and returning home after long and difficult wanderings in a foreign land. During the period of the emergence of Christianity, the anchor among many peoples who lived on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea became a symbol of steadfastness, hope and salvation. Perhaps this happened because in the image of an anchor with a stem deployed in the plane of the horns, the upper part was perceived by Christians as a sign of the cross. Speaking about the anchor as a symbol of hope and navigation, a few words should be said about the graphic representation of this object. Unfortunately, some modern artists often confuse the image of a real Admiralty anchor with a stylized one. When they need to draw a real anchor, they draw one with the stem turned 90 degrees. This mistake, which can be forgiven the fine arts of the ancient world, too often finds its way into the pages of printed publications. The stylized images of anchors on cape ribbons, emblems, badges and belt badges do not shine with clarity and completeness of form. The modern stylization of the anchor is often inexpressive, very far from the original - the Admiralty anchor.

Modern Admiralty anchor. One of the most reliable anchors

The old emblem of the French admiral of the galley fleet is interesting. On it, instead of the Admiralty anchor, a four-horned cat anchor is depicted. Why? Because Admiralty anchors have never been used on rowing and sailing galleys.

The meaning of the anchor as a symbol of hope can be found in aphorisms and winged expressions of literary sources in many countries of the world.

In the English literary language, one can count dozens of idioms and figurative expressions with the word anchor, which, in addition to their direct meaning, also have a figurative meaning. For example:

Sheet anchor of happiness - reliable anchor of happiness;

That anchor one "s hore in (at) - to place hopes;

To lay anchor to windward - foresee danger, take precautions.

The most common English proverb with the word anchor - Hope is my anchor - Hope is my anchor.

In writing, the word anchor was first mentioned in Russian in the chronicle of Nestor "The Tale of Bygone Years" - the oldest written monument of the history of our Motherland that has come down to us.

It says that under the terms of the peace treaty dictated by Oleg to the Greeks in 907, the Russians, among other tributes, should receive anchors, sails and tackle for their fleet. The word anchor has long been used in ancient Russian Pomeranian proverbs and sayings: “Faith is my anchor”, “Language is the anchor of the body” and in others.

The Russian classical writers did not forget about the anchor either. For example, I.S. Turgenev wrote: “Our life does not depend on us; but we all have one anchor from which, if you don’t want to, you will never break - a sense of duty.

The stylized image of the Admiralty anchor is an integral part of the emblems, signs and seals of the maritime departments of almost all countries with fleets.

Therefore, the anchor, which has become a symbol of hope since ancient times, eventually became a symbol of navigation in general...

The desire to increase the holding power of the anchor with the same weight led to the installation of paws at the ends of its horns. This innovation was carried out at the beginning of our era. It can be assumed that the paws at the anchor were the first to be made, according to the Roman writer and consul Pliny the Younger, the ancient inhabitants of Etruria - the Etruscans, of whom he was a contemporary. On a marble column in Rome, erected by Emperor Trajan around 114 in honor of the victory over the Dacians, among the many reliefs with scenes from the period of this war, there is an image of this anchor, which is considered classic: almost nineteen centuries have passed, and the design of the anchor has not changed.

In the Middle Ages, only iron anchors with wooden rods were made. Judging by the images on miniature old manuscripts, coins, seals and paintings, it can be said with confidence that the shape of anchors practically did not change during this historical period, with a few exceptions. So, for example, in the middle or at the end of the XIV century, three-, four-, five- and even six-fingered cat anchors appeared on the boats of the Scandinavians. They were very comfortable for the rooks: light and tenacious. During naval skirmishes with enemy ships, the Vikings often used such anchors (much smaller) as grappling hooks. For large ships, such an anchor was of little use, but only four-horned anchors were used on galleys.

Scandinavian shipbuilders made an important improvement on their ships: it was they who were the first to break through the cheekbones of the ship and make haws for anchors.

Using cat-type anchors without a stem, they realized that if a hole was cut in the cheekbones, then when the anchor was raised, it could be pulled inside the boat until it rested against the skin with its paws. The time-consuming manual operation - transshipment of the anchor through the boat, which threatened to break through the bottom of the boat, became unnecessary.

During the Crusades, they began to build cargo-passenger-military ships - naves - with a displacement of up to 600 tons. On the naves there were up to twenty anchors weighing from 100 to 1500 kilograms. This is explained by the fact that in those days the spiers were not yet known, the anchors were raised manually, and if the anchor could not be pulled out, then the rope was simply chopped off.

The size of the ships continued to increase. The main core of the military fleets of the great maritime powers were galleons, carracks and galleasses. The displacement of the Spanish galleons averaged 700 tons. However, among them were giants, such as the famous "Madre de Dios" with a displacement of 1600 tons and "Soverin of the Siz" - 1530 tons.

Shipbuilders learned how to build reliable seaworthy vessels in other European countries, for example, in France and Holland. But with the anchors for these hulks, the situation was bad. Blacksmiths did not know how to forge reliable, durable anchors for large ships. For their manufacture, hammers were needed heavier than those that could be wielded by the most powerful hammerers in Europe. In those years, such hammers could only be set in motion by the force of falling water. Where there was none, lever hammers were used, driven by the power of several workers or a horse. Their device was very primitive: the woman of the hammer was attached to a rope thrown over a block fixed at the ceiling of the forge. People or a horse pulled the rope. Having raised the hammer head to a certain height, the rope was released on command, and the head fell onto the forging on the anvil.

In the middle of the 15th century, man finally learned to use water mills to drive blacksmith hammers and to use water energy to move bellows, the levers of which he connected to the wheels of water mills.

Although metallurgy and shipbuilding made significant progress in their development by the end of the 17th century, the anchor did not undergo any changes. In principle, he remained the same as we see him on Trajan's column in Rome. True, the anchors manufactured in different countries differed from each other.

For example, in such maritime powers as Spain and Portugal (XV-XVII), anchors were made with horns curved in the shape of an arc of a circle. The anchors of Holland were almost no different from them, which by the beginning of the 17th century had come out on top in shipbuilding among European countries. English-made anchors from the 17th to 18th centuries differed from Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch anchors in that their horns were made perfectly straight from the junction with the spindle to the toe of the horn.

Almost similar to the English anchors were the anchors of the Swedes and Danes. Almost their only difference from the anchors of the British was a smaller bending angle of the horns. The French in this period of time forged anchors, the horns of which were bent into the shape of an arc of a circle or had a kink under the trailing edge of the paws.

Anchors with straight horns were also forged in Russia. They were replaced by simpler anchors with rounded horns and a spindle. Over time, the number of anchors on large warships increased to ten, and each of them had a specific name, purpose and place on the ship.

By purpose, the anchors are divided into anchors (in the bow) - to hold the vessel in the parking lot, and auxiliary (in the stern) - to turn the vessel at the anchor, hold the vessel with a lag to the wind (stop anchors, verps).

The largest anchor of a sailing ship - the right anchor - is called plecht. In the sailing fleet, the plecht was the standard for calculating the mass of the remaining anchors of a given ship, each of which was lighter than the plecht by a certain part.

The heaviest of the auxiliary anchors - the stop anchor - was designed to hold a vessel with a displacement of over 800 tons in a certain position relative to a wave, wind or current. The stop anchor was usually much lighter than the anchor and was located in the stern of the ship. Ships with a displacement of 800 tons or less were equipped with a werp anchor. This anchor is used as a landing anchor in case of loss or in emergency situations, for example, to remove the vessel from the shallows, move it to another place in the absence of progress, and so on. In these cases, the verp is brought on boats from the stern of the ship and dumped in the right place.

On the starboard side of the sailing vessel there is a spare anchor toy (toy-an-ker). It was used in cases where the ship lost both anchors and it was required to additionally give up the third anchor. Toy was placed behind the right anchor and belonged to the ship's anchors of small size. The left anchor of the ship is called daglix. He belonged to the anchors of medium size. The daglix anchor rope was called dagliks-tou (dagliks rope). In addition, in the hold of the main hatch there was a large spare anchor - a mooring line. Its spindle was lashed to a post supporting the cockpit beam, and its paws were buried in stone ballast. For convenience, this anchor was stored without a rod, which was attached to it as needed.

Centuries-old experience has developed a number of rules and formulas, according to which it was possible to very accurately determine the required mass of the anchor for a ship under construction.

One of these rules was: the weight of the main anchor, on which the ship stood solidly (from where its name came from - the anchor), on sailboats is calculated so that the weight of the anchor, expressed in pounds, exceeds in digital terms the displacement of the ship, expressed in tons . And the thickness of the anchor hemp rope was determined on the basis of: half an inch of its thickness per foot of the width of the ship's deck along the midship frame.

But in the book of the Frenchman Bourdet de Vilguet, which is called “Science of the sea, that is, the experience of the theory and practice of managing the ship and fleet of the military, which he translated from the French book with the addition of many necessary explanations and actions, was published by Nikolai Kurganov, a major and mathematical and navigational sciences professor. Published in St. Petersburg at the Imperial Academy of Sciences", in the section "On the size of anchors" it is said that to determine the mass of the largest plecht-anchor "it is necessary to take 2/3, the width of the ship and multiply cubically, and divide the product by 33, because this proportion is Dutch, and there are 33 Dutch pounds in Russian pounds. The quotient of division is the weight of the plecht-anchor in pounds. Daglix anchor weighing 9/10 plecht. Toy Anchor in 9/10 Daglyx Half the weight of the plecht and daglyx taken together will be the weight of the mooring anchor. A large verp is 2/3 the weight of a daglix, a medium one is 2/3 or 1/2, and a small verp is 1/2 the weight of a large verp.”

In the 17th century, in the English navy, the mass of the largest ship was taken at the rate of 2/3 of the total mass of all its anchors. There were also "purely Russian" rules that were used by domestic shipbuilders:

The weight of the anchor in pounds must correspond in numerical terms to 1/4 of the area of ​​the submerged part of the ship's amidships, expressed in square feet.

To determine the weight of the anchor, corresponding to the size of the ship, it is necessary to multiply the midsection area by 3 and, having reduced the resulting product by 1/6 of it, take the result as the weight of the anchor in pounds.

The weight of the plecht, expressed in pounds, must exceed in numerical terms the displacement of the ship, expressed in tons.

Nowadays, shipbuilders use the tables of classification societies to select the anchor mass - the Register of the Russian Federation, the Lloyd's Register, Bureau Veritas, etc.

These tables are calculated according to formulas that, depending on the known displacement of empirically calculated coefficients, make it possible to determine the mass of the dead anchor in kilograms.

It must be said that the mass of the anchor, calculated by these formulas, is always close to the mass determined by the above rules. Experience is experience!

From the moment the first metal anchors appeared on ships to the present, sailors have been worried and worried about their strength. Very often the life of sailors depended only on the strength of the connection between the horn and the spindle. Most shipwrecks near the coast occurred precisely because of a broken horn at the junction with the lower part of the spindle.

Analyzing the rather frequent accidents and shipwrecks near dangerous shores that occurred in the English fleet at the beginning of the 19th century, one of the officials of the royal shipyard in Plymouth, Richard Pering, came to the conclusion that the main reason for these accidents was the insufficient strength of English-made anchors. In a note addressed to the first lord, Pering claimed "... that some mistake was made in the technology of their manufacture ...". The main drawback, in his opinion, lay in the fact that not every anchor master was able to properly weld the outer and inner bars that make up the assembly of the spindle or anchor horns. However, the report of the official of the Plymouth shipyard was ignored. But he didn't give up. At his own peril and risk, Pering did a thorough technical study of the design of anchors - English, French, Russian, Dutch. And in 1815, he asked the Admiralty to consider and test his anchor. But this request was also ignored. And English ships continued to suffer accidents due to bad anchors. Only seventeen years after its manufacture, Pering's anchor was delivered to the naval base at Chatan. In appearance, it was an ordinary anchor of two and a half tons, differing from its counterparts only in shorter and thicker horns and a spindle having an elliptical (instead of square) section along its entire length. After the most severe tests of its strength, the members of the commission had no choice but to admit: the anchor, invented by a simple clerk, turned out to be stronger than the anchors for "Her Majesty's fleet", and Richard Pering was granted a patent or, as they said then, a "privilege" for his invention .

What was the secret of the increased strength of the Pering anchor? The innovation was that instead of the bar iron commonly used for making anchors, Pering used iron strips from 3 to 10 inches wide with a thickness of 1/5 and 1/7 of the thickness of the spindle. This gave him the opportunity to better weld the spindle and horn assembly. Pering also changed the proportion of the anchor: the spindle and horns became shorter and thicker, and the spindle section, as already shown above, became elliptical.

A significant drawback of the new anchor was the very laborious work of its manufacture: the hand hammer is too weak, and the steam hammer is inconvenient.

That is why, ten years after the appearance of the Pering anchor, the English Admiral William Parker proposed a new anchor to the Admiralty. He simplified the technology of connecting the horns to the spindle and changed the basic dimensions of the anchor. It was this anchor that was recommended in 1852 by a special Committee formed under the English Admiralty as the optimal anchor type standard for use on warships and merchant ships of the British fleet. This decision was preceded by special comparative tests of many anchors of other designs, which were exhibited at the Great Royal Exhibition held in London.

Entering the Parker anchor in the test reports, the members of the Committee named it the Admiralty Pattern Anchor. Hence its modern name - the Admiralty anchor. The old anchors of this type, but with straight horns and a long spindle, the British began to call the anchors of the old drawing with a long spindle, or old simple (old plain), or long spindle (long shanked).

The name "Admiralty anchor" very quickly and firmly entered into use in the English fleet, and from where it migrated to other fleets, including the Russian one. Since then, it has become a tradition: the Admiralty anchor.

An unacceptable mistake is made by those historians who believe that metallurgy in our country began to develop from the time of Peter. The Russians knew how to make iron long before him, and as for iron anchors, they were forged even before the baptism of Russia.

Even before Peter I, anchor production was widely developed on the banks of the Volga. For centuries, this craft flourished in the Nizhny Novgorod province. Yaroslavl, Vologda, Kazan, Gorodets, Voronezh, Lodeynoye Pole, and many cities of the Urals were once also famous for their anchor masters. The names of good anchor masters were known far beyond the cities where they worked. In 1667, when Russia was building its first combat sailing ship, the Eagle, blacksmiths from the villages of Dedinovo and Kolomna did not agree to forge anchors, and the craftsmen had to be sent from Kazan.

The domestic shipbuilding that unfolded under Peter I, as a result of which Russia received hundreds of ships, led to the rapid development of blacksmithing. Peter I himself was a good blacksmith, and he always treated blacksmiths with great attention and care. But the demand from them was great. From the anchor master, Peter I demanded not just "management of work with diligence and good skill", as from other blacksmiths, but "great diligence and extreme art." The anchor master was especially reminded that it was he who should answer if the ship’s accident occurred due to the anchor breaking: “Because the whole integrity of the ship consists in what he should give an answer if that is done by negligence.” In order to increase the reliability of the anchor and protect the ship from an accident, under Peter I they were subjected to a severe test of strength. In addition, the best iron was used for the manufacture of anchors, which was superior in quality to English. That is why Russian anchors were in great demand abroad.

What was the form of Russian anchors in the Petrine era? In the domestic practice of shipbuilding of that time, Dutch methods prevailed, and Peter I ordered the anchors to be “made according to the Dutch drawing”, that is, with horns curved in the form of an arc of a circle. In accordance with the “Regulations on the management of the Admiralty and the shipyard” issued by Peter I on April 15, 1722, the anchors were supposed to be made of the approved proportion of good iron and look firmly, “so that the rods are tightly and tightly connected with good iron before they are put into the forge ". When heated in the hearth, it was instructed to carefully ensure that the metal "neither burnt, nor coldly removed, so that it would be tightly welded everywhere and there would be no lack of brewing." The same conditions had to be observed both “in welding the horns to the spindle”, and during “beating on the anvil”.

Anchors for large ships of the Russian fleet were made in Izhora, where in 1719, by decree of Peter I, the Admiralty Plants were founded. The forging hammers in these factories were powered by water wheels. In Russia, since the time of Peter I, each ship of the line was supplied with five anchors.

In addition to the Dutch-style anchors, under Peter I, other anchors were also made. It is known that ten years before his death, Peter I began to replace Dutch shipbuilders who worked at Russian shipyards with English ones. That is why in Russia the "anchors of the English drawing" - with straight horns - have become widespread.

By the middle of the 18th century, the production of anchors in Russia had reached its perfection. By this time, Russia had developed its own national type of anchor, which differed in its proportions from the anchors of the Dutch, British and French. After the death of Peter I, the heaviest anchors were forged at the Botkinsky plant: they weighed up to 336 pounds (that's almost 5.5 tons!). The largest battleships of the Russian fleet were supplied with them, the best metal was taken for their forging, they were made by the best craftsmen, they withstood the most severe test of all that ever existed in the history of metallurgy.

Before proceeding with the assembly of the parts of the anchor, a life-size drawing of it was made and patterns were made from it. All dimensions of the finished anchor had to exactly match these patterns. Until 1838, at all factories in the Urals, anchors were made according to the so-called Russian method, and later - according to the methods of Pering and Parker. Work on the manufacture of large anchors in the 18th-19th centuries throughout the world included the following processes: the assembly of individual parts of the anchor from iron bars or plates, their welding in furnaces or furnaces, finishing under the hammer, the footnote of the spindle with horns and the final finishing of the welded anchor.

The manufacture of such an anchor resulted in a truly hellish labor. We can safely say that in the list of blacksmith products of the last century there is no thing that would be made with such diligence and attention as an anchor. Each anchor made in the Urals rightfully deserved the name Tsar Anchor, and each of the found Ural anchors is worthy of being installed on a pedestal, just as they did with the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell, although the first one never fired, and the second never rang, while the anchors of the Urals served the strong Russian fleet for a long time and faithfully under Ushakov, Lazarev and Nakhimov.

Hall anchor. The first anchor of this type was made in 1888 in Sheffield (Great Britain). Anchors of this type are very technologically advanced and "take away the soil" most quickly. Initially, anchors were used, with a stem, but then they were abandoned

Considering the enormous difficulties associated with the manufacture of large anchors, it can be argued that the cost of "symbols of hope" a hundred years ago was prohibitive. For example, at the Botkinsky plant, a peck of anchor cost the treasury (with overhead costs) 4 rubles 99 kopecks. Thus, the anchor, for example, on the battleship "Twelve Apostles" weighing 330 pounds cost about 1650 rubles. In those days, big money!

The development of the fleet, especially the increase in the size of ships and the desire to get rid of bulky devices for fastening anchors with rods in the bow of ships, required the creation of anchor designs that are easy to handle when fastened in a stowed manner and have increased power. In the last quarter of the 19th century, numerous types of anchors appeared. Almost all anchors are made with swivel legs and without a stem. In England in 1885, the Admiralty conducted a series of tests and experiments to determine the best anchor. In 1891, the English Admiralty tested the anchors of Ingefield, Hall, Byers. They were given from the same ship in turn, and the place of the fall was marked with a buoy. Then the machine worked at an average speed back for 20 minutes, during which the diver followed the maneuver in the water and determined the position of the anchor. This time preference was given to Captain Hall's anchor, which dug deep into the ground when it was dragged across the ground only a few feet.

In the 1970s, the requirements for anchors and anchor chains around the world were already determined by state standards and the rules of marine classification societies: Lloyd's Register - in the UK, Bureau Veritas - in France, North German Lloyd's - in Germany, the American Bureau of Shipping - in the USA , Russian register - in Russia. Without the approval of these organizations, not a single anchor design that appeared was accepted for mass production.

Anchor system of the Russian engineer I. Matrosov with an anchor chain

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, heavyweight anchors for our nuclear-powered icebreakers and large-capacity dry cargo ships and tankers were produced at a plant in Nikolaev. The weight of the anchors necessary for arming a particular ship is determined based on its cargo capacity, and for warships - depending on the displacement. Thus, eighteen-ton anchors were installed on the first Soviet supertankers of the Krym type with a cargo capacity of 150,000 tons. With a displacement of the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser (TAKR) "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov" of 55,600 tons, the mass of its main anchor is 15 tons, and one link of the anchor chain is 66 kilograms. Each such link is made of a steel bar with a diameter of 82 millimeters, in other words, an anchor chain of 82 millimeters caliber.

After a long voyage, the command given from the main command post - "Stand in place, anchor" - sounds like music to the crew. This means that there will be an early meeting with relatives and friends, that the sailor will again feel solid ground under his feet, that sleepless nights and a continuous struggle with the ocean will end, which at any moment can become furious and destroy the ship.

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