Soleil Royal anchors

English practice on First Rates was to have four anchors, two big bowers and two "stream" anchors.

The rode for the anchors was stout stuff, 36, 40, 48" circumference hawser-laid line.  This was not the sort of stuff you whip a few turns around a capstan and winch in.

Instead, a smaller line, the traveler, was fitted to a block bent on in the head of the ship, abaft of the stem.  The traveler was then run around the capstan, and the ends spliced together into a continuous run of line, and run along side the anchor rode.

To heave in the anchor, the traveler was "nipped" to the rode with small lines about  18-24" apart.  The capstan bars were put in, and the pawl set right, and sailors bent to the capstan bars and heaved away.

As the rode came aboard, additional nips bound it to the traveler.  As the rode reached the hatch leading to the cable tier, the ships boys would loose the nips to carry them forward.  The more nips on the rode, the better it held, so you wanted on for as long as possible.  Which could mean  right into the radius of the capstan bars.  Which would get boys under the feet of the sailors heaving the capstan. 

The boys had to learn how to snap the nip so it would whip around the rode and traveler.  They'd also have a technique for whipping the nips out, too.  Which is how wee nippers were also whippersnappers, too.

Hmm, I don't much recall how French capstan practice worked.  I seem to want to remember that French practice was to single-deck capstans, and not the double-decked ones the British favored.

Oh. and the "smaller" stream anchors are smaller in the sense of being 7/8 or 8/9 the weight of the 3000±# bower anchors.  They'd be on a lighter rode, like "only" 30-39" circumference. 

Circumference was easier to measure in hawser and cable-laid lines.  It's also handy in that  2 to 3 times circumference is the minimum diameter it will bend around a sheave without damage.

Good to remember that rodes are as long as a "cable" long--1000 fathoms, in length.  Which gets to be a serious bit of unruly weight when it gets to be 12 or 15 or 18" in diameter.  And, you need two bower rodes, and two stream rodes, and probably a couple more rode for kedges and storm cables.

If that seems a lot of line, it is.  But, to anchor in 100' of water, you need 700 to 800' of anchor rode payed out.  For 200' of water depth, you need 1400' to 1600' of line out.  You need to have some of that rode aboard ship, if only  to have enough to snub up to the riding knees. Which is done by passing a strop around the rode, and the strop bent to the riding knees.  Then, you can unship the traveler and use the capstan to heave whatever else needs manpower hoisting away.

Found this online:

289 soleil royal heller.html

CapnMac82

Found this online:

289 soleil royal heller.html

Good grief!  Wonder how many THOUSANDS of hours the builder spent on this one??  Impressive to say the least!

Apart from the detailed description capnmac82 write, I'll give a few more values.

For example, the Sovereign of the Seas year 1637 with a displacement: 1,546 tonnes contained the brutal amount of 12 anchors with 4000 pounds each

Well, the Soleil Royal year 1670 with a displacement: 1,630 tonnes
It could well have sum 4 to 6 anchor from 3000 to 4000 pound

The historical accounts relating to these anchors say the following:
Anchor type "Kedge" Years 1600/1700
length: head / arm crown - 11 to 13 ft
Stock: 7 to 8 ft
Arm length: fluke to fluke in a straight line = 60% Length of head / crown
(sorry this is a Portuguese-English machine translation)