Club-hauling is generally considered to be an emergency maneuver. Many of the old square-riggers were very bad at tacking (changing tack by turning into and across the wind on to a new tack), and instead would be forced to wear ship (falling off the wind, passing the eye of the wind across the stern and then coming up on to the new tack), and this was particularly true for those ships that couldn't sail very close to the wind. Wearing ship is OK if you have plenty of sea-room, but you lose a lot of ground to leeward that may take a while to make up on the new tack, and is most inadvisable when on a lee-shore. In an unweatherly ship rapidly approaching a lee-shore, club-hauling may be the only maneuver that can save the ship by forcing it to tack abruptly, and if the maneuver is done with a
very handy crew, the anchor may be plucked up off the bottom when the ship proceeds on its new tack. Otherwise, the anchor line is cut or slipped and the anchor lost 'on purpose' (better a lost anchor than a lost ship), though it is also standard to buoy the anchor line so that it may be retrieved later as time and circumstance allow. The use of club-hauling as a battle maneuver only works if the water is fairly shallow, though in a big storm at sea, you can also use wreckage to achieve the much the same effect as an anchor (a sea-anchor). In shallow water, club-hauling can also be used as a quick way to anchor, which was used on one occassion by a Dutch fleet, that in the middle of battle with the English, suddenly dropped their anchors, club-hauled and furled their sails, because the wind was very light, and they had noticed that the tide had changed, which the English had not. The English fleet was swept off out of range down the tide, and the Dutch were able to restore order to their fleet, and effect repairs......