San Francisco Anchor Chains

I don't know what they call it, but isn't that chain with a hook used to assist in locking down the anchor chains so the anchor stays locked against the hull in place in heavy sea. The molding doesn't show the hook.

Those short lengths of "chain" running from the hawse pipes to that small block like structure are "hold fasts" for the anchors.  They take the strain off of the capstans.  At the call to release the anchor, they are struck off with a sledge hammer.  My terminology may not be correct.  I am a Navy vet but, I was an Airdale and my boot camp seamanship classes were a LONG time ago.

The proper term is "chain stopper".  The chain stopper consists of a pelican hook, a turnbuckle, some chain links, and a shackle for attaching it to a deck pad eye.

www.blueoceantackle.com/pelican_hook_chain_stopper_assembly.jpg

That moulding is terrible--the chain should run fair from the hawsepipe and neatly around the capstan, and then around forward to the chain lockers.

It seems odd to me a vessel of that size would only have the one chain stopper--but, in reality, there were probably several pad eyes to apply stoppers as needed.

Say you are sent to a mooring buoy.  As you steam over there, you run out one of the anchors until the disassemble link comes on deck.  You stopper the anchor, and slack the chain.  The link comes out and the free end of the chain gets run out the bow chock with enough slack to reach the mooring.  A smart Sea and Anchor detail will have fitted a swivel and a shackle to the rode.

CG Bob's link is an excellent photo of a chain stopper.   The middle part is a turnbuckle which can be tightened or loosened to need (this can require a couple stout BM on long bars).

One of the things that threw me was the capstan.  Turns out what is molded into the deck is only the base of the capstan- the top portion is to be installed in a later step I just had not noticed.  I also think the fitting on the deck that leads to the chain locker is too small. It is smaller than the chain, so it would be very hard for the chain to go through it :-(  Thanks, guys, got everything figured out, removed the cast in chain, drilled the opening to the hawse pipe and the- what do you call that little "box" that leads to the chain locker?  Never did know what that was called.

Don ; On my ship that was referred to as the spray cuff . There is another name , but I haven't been on a destroyer in fifty years .

Don : just a thought .When I saw pictures of the " INDY " she had the same arrangement , BUT , there were visible in the photos two chain stoppers on each chain between the " Wildcat " and the Hawse pipe .The Wildcat was the portion of the winch the chain went around . This had braking gear and all that as well . Hope this helps .

On my CA-38 I replaced the anchor chains and just skipped the chain stoppers.

A photo of the USS PHILADALPHIA CL-41 shows two chain stoppers on the anchor chain.  The forward chain stopper is attached to a pad eye outboard of the chain.  The aft chain stopper attaches to a pad eye inboard of the anchor chain.  www.navsource.org/.../0404126.jpg

Excellent photo. Which demonstrates another important detail, Don. On the cruisers, as well as other gun armed ships, the "railings" aren't that at all but are life lines run through stanchions set up and struck by the deck division. Capnmac can certainly explain it better that I can, but these are not permanent pipe railings, at least on the gun deck.

When I built my San Francisco I looked at a lot of photos and came to the conclusion that the PE stuff needed to be painted with the "bottom" rail blue to simulate the water way, the vertical stanchions blue and the life lines, well, line color.

Starting by painting the entire thing tan, I then brush painted the bottom water way and used a #11 blade dipped in blue to paint the stanchions.

Thanks. I'll have to look into that.  I was just about to paint the railings area of the PE sheet.

huh? er, what?  Somebody mentioned my name? (G)

Foredeck stanchions are held in place by a bit of hollow tube, and the stanchion fits down into the tube and is held by a cross-pin or bolt.   These often have a wobbly fit, too.

Where it gets tricky is the netting rigged in the bottom two lines.

Striking down is middling easy.

Slack the netting, and bind it up with marline.

Pull the pins from the section to be struck down.  Pull the stanchions and slide them down to the end of the where the gap is to be.  Marline all the stanchions to the last standing one.  

Slack the lifelines (and netting if needed) and police it up.

The smart Sea & Anchor Detail will have fitted stanchions to the sockets along the midships line, and fitted a lifeline there.

All of this can be dependent upon the sea state, weather conditions, how emergent the situation is, and so on.

Now, those lifelines will be a white to pale gray color from being out in the weather, if a person were inclined to paint them differently..  or, just paint them in the vertical side color and call it even.

CapnMac82

huh? er, what?  Somebody mentioned my name? (G)

But seriously, I have a favorite color I use for all things that have seen a little sun. Pre-dreadnought decking; life lines. Topside color on that F4D.

Light Gull Gray. Its pretty hard to have a quarrel with.

Don, as long as we are on the topic, the major issue and therefore chore I came away from/ improved (I hope ) on the model was the searchlight tower. It's a pretty crude representation in the kit. But it's also not hard to scratch build.

This class is my all time look up to type thing. After the debacle at Pearl, the USN Treaty Cruisers fought the good fight on the gun line.

They got hammered by the Jap battleships in the Solomons, but damn they gave as good as they got and they went down swinging. I think its the key to turning the tide in the Pacific.

I bought the GMM photoetch set that has the tower.  Just dodged a major bullet yesterday. I had glued the PE tower to the styrene base, but got it 90 degrees off- wrong orientation!  I was fortunately able to break it loose, and glue back on in proper orientation.  Still have a goof, though.  There are two pairs of searchlight stations on top of the tower, a wider one and a narrower one. Unfortunately I lost track of the part numbers for the mounts as I was building them up- got the wider in the wrong spot!  That has a lot more glue surface area!  I hope I still have some CA debonder- I am sure it will take that rather than just popping the part off!

The PE set is really nice.  The cranes and the catapults are very prominent on this ship, and one of the reasons I bought it was that these are in the PE set.