What if the sea is too deep and the ship's chain is not long enough?

The anchor is a device used by all kinds of ships when they are mooring. Almost every ship is equipped with an anchor. When a ship does not need to sail on the sea or is docked in a port, the anchor is thrown onto the seabed. Through the friction between the anchor and the seabed, it can fix the ship on the sea surface. In this way, there is no need to worry that the ship will be blown away by the waves. But what if the water is too deep and the anchor chain of a warship is not long enough?

For instance, when a warship needs to anchor in the Mariana Trench area, relying solely on an anchor is definitely not enough to keep the vessel in place. After all, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench reaches over 10,000 meters, and currently, no warship's anchor is that long. It is known that the larger the tonnage of a ship, the larger its anchor. However, due to factors such as material and the size of the vessel, there is a certain limit to the length of the anchor chain.

Under normal circumstances, ships over 10,000 tons use about 12 shackles of standard anchor chains, which are approximately 330 meters long. However, considering that the anchor can only catch the ground when it is tilted during actual operation, the 330-meter anchor chain is at most usable in water depths of around 100 meters. Therefore, if the depth exceeds 100 meters, the anchor's effect will be weakened, and in deep sea, the anchor is of no use at all.

So at this point, what should a warship do if it wants to anchor in the deep Pacific Ocean? First of all, increasing the anchor chain is definitely not an option. On the one hand, no one knows how deep the seabed is. On the other hand, if the anchor chain is too long, it is not convenient to carry. Take the most advanced Nimitz-class aircraft carrier of the United States as an example. Its anchor chain has reached 1,500 meters, which is almost the longest limit of the anchor chain and cannot be increased any further.

At this point, the dynamic positioning system on the aircraft carrier comes into play. Under the influence of the positioning control system, power plant and thrust device, when the aircraft carrier wants to dock in the deep sea, it can accurately calculate the influence of external factors such as wind speed, ocean current direction and speed. Then, through calculation, this information is provided to the aircraft carrier's propeller. Thus, under the action of force, the influence of wind and wave factors is offset, enabling the aircraft carrier to achieve a dynamic balance, that is, a relative "docking".