The most powerful electric crane on Titanic could only lift 2 ½ tons. The center anchor was over six times heavier. No problem, rig some lines on the anchor crane and lift it up and out. That’s what it’s there for, anyway. Some may be thinking of the weight of Titanic’s fully loaded lifeboats, lowered by only one or two men on each fall. But even at a lesser weight of 6.3 tons (2300 lbs estimated for the lifeboat and gear, plus 65 persons at 180 lbs each) the difference is none of that weight had to be pulled up. It only had to be lowered down. And the only reason one or two men could do that easily on each fall was that each line, after passing over the sheave on the inboard end of the davit frame, took a turn and a half around the short cross-shaped bollard at the base of the davits. The friction inherent in that arrangement reduced the weight to manageable levels. The center anchor, on the other hand, had to be lifted up – at least high enough to get it up off the deck so it could be swung outboard through the removable panel on the port side of the anchor well. And if the anchor was to be recovered, it would have had to be hoisted a far greater distance than that once it was weighed and hanging below the bow.

At first glance there appear to be two possible lift points for the anchor. One is the shackle at the end of the shank (front right of the photo above). But while this might seem plausible at first, this ring wouldn’t work for that purpose. It’s too big for a cargo hook, and besides the anchor crane wasn’t tall enough to lift the anchor vertically when you allow for the blocks and rigging involved.

This photo from Olympic shows the crown of the anchor, with the base of the crane just behind it. Note the ring on the shank where it meets the crown. This is the actual lifting point. This is the purpose of this type of fitting, and in fact the band attaching it to the shank is called the balancing band. The ring looks small in the photo, but look at either of the first two photos and imagine how large it was in real life.

So what if you needed to use Titanic’s center anchor? Pass the wire rope hawser out the hole in the bow, shackle it to the anchor, lift the anchor up and out, and lower it down until the hawser bears the weight. Unhook the crane tackle, and you’re ready to drop anchor. To recover the anchor after it’s weighed, do the whole procedure in reverse. Sounds easy enough. But in reality it would have been a bit more difficult.

As we know, this anchor was very, very heavy. At the time Olympic and Titanic were built, their center anchors were the largest in the world. In the American system of weights and measures, this anchor actually weighed over seventeen tons. Now lift it up and suspend it in the air – over the bow of a ship, where you’re guaranteed to have the maximum amount of pitching motion from the sea. Your deck party better have that anchor under control, or (quoting Mark Darrah, from an August 1998 posting) – "that anchor would become a 15 ½ ton wrecking ball the moment it was lifted free of the deck, winch or no winch!" He also relates a story in John Maxtone-Graham’s book The Only Way to Cross about Mauretania’s spare anchor breaking loose in a storm, and the difficulty the crew had securing it over the course of many tense hours.

Second, because of this anchor’s weight (or more properly, its mass) it’s going to be difficult to move any part of it in any direction, even when suspended, without applying significant force or leverage. If part of the anchor catches on the edge of the deck, you can’t just push it off, because you’re only applying about a hundred pounds of push to thirty-four thousand pounds of steel.

Third, retrieval of the center anchor, once weighed and clear of the water, would have been a fairly involved project, and when swung out over the port side (over the removable panel in the sheer strake) the crane arm would still be well aft of the bow. This means that a man would have to be lowered over the bow down onto the anchor, and pull the heavy block with its hook and all the rigging forward and around to the lifting ring on the anchor. Even assisted by men in the bow with lines, it’s still a challenging task. (It’s very difficult to exert a lateral pull when you’re hanging down off a line.)

So if rigging the center anchor for use took so much work, why not have it permanently rigged in some manner?

One of the most compelling theories I’ve read about Titanic’s anchors is in the Rivet Counter glossary, by Brett Anthony in his section Dropping the Hook: " . . . Titanic's designers knew that the anchorages at Cherbourg and Queenstown would almost never require the specified holding power. The solution was to rig the Olympic ships with a pair of smallish (8 ton), easily handled hull-mounted anchors".

To the list of "planned" anchorages, add Belfast for the occasional drydock trip. And even if required to anchor at Southampton or New York, the ship would have still been in sheltered waters subject only to tidal currents. In any event, Titanic’s builders and her owners could be confident that her center anchor would rarely, if ever, be used. This, in theory, explains why the Olympic-class ships were not constructed with more substantial bower anchors, or an anchor hawsepipe in the stem like Normandie and other ships of a later era. The ship could be equipped with a heavier spare anchor, semi-permanently stowed and rigged for use when required.

There are a few photographs that clearly show Titanic’s anchor crane rigged for use. One frequently published is the one of Olympic entering the drydock, with Titanic off to the right. One of the best copies of this is on pages 14 and 15 of Anatomy of the Titanic. (Also in Leo Marriot’s Titanic, p. 29, Michael McCaughan’s Birth of the Titanic, p. 129, and others, but Anatomy has this printed very clearly, across two pages.)

A caution here: none of the photographs show what the crane is being used for. We can use the photos to figure out the rigging system, and count the blocks used, but we can’t really be certain if they were actually lifting the center anchor in the picture. They could have been lifting something else. And remember, it’s called photo interpretation for a reason. We can only make a good guess about what we’re seeing.

One more point about the rigging. Anyone who’s finished their model has probably rigged two lines from the crane out and aft to the bow railings. It’s important to note that these could not be used for lifting, but most likely to rotate the crane and its load when in use. Otherwise these lines would be used to secure the crane for sea, in the position we are most familiar with. According to Bruce Beveridge, the Harland & Wolff plans show no powered rotating mechanism belowdecks. More importantly, however the crane was turned, these lines would have been needed to prevent the crane from swinging one way or the other from the motion of the ship when it was in use at sea. Adopting what I believe is the correct term from square-rigged ships, I have chosen to refer to these as the port and starboard bracing tackle. (I have heard them called preventer stays, but by definition a stay is fixed in place, like a guy wire.) Below is a photo, with a diagram of the rigging. This arrangement is called a gun tackle purchase, so named for its use with the cannons on British warships in Nelson’s day.