Having-fun
good readers of this blog will like it.
It's a good build, and of a complicated subject.
I do find it hilarious that AL modeled the anchor windlass off of a modern commercial trawler or the like.
Natural fiber line, especialy in those days before industrial standarization, does not want to bend much. Typically, no more than 3 times radius (or around 1 circumference, e.g., pi). Going tighter risks breaking the fibers and eventually leading to a parting.
This is compounded in cables and hawsers, as they are laid up of ropes for strands.
So, anchor lines would not be wound around the windlass drum like on a winch.
Further, the windlass was wanted for other heavy heaving tasks, like hoisting the yards, or lifting cargo or supplies.
Cables and hawsers are also uite heavy, too. So,. you want to lead them down to the bottom of the hold and laid near the center of the ship.
In all probablity, the anchor rodes were laid acros the deck and led below near the main mast.
To raise the anchor, you lay out a smaller messenger line (one that can be taken around the windlas drum) and that's led to a temporarily set block fore and aft. That anchor ine is then tied to the messenger with smaller lines, known as "nips" or "whips" (from the action of flicking the lines around the rode).
In later days, when capstans replaced windlasses,* ship's boys would scamper along the anchor rode applying the removing the nips along the length, as the larger sailors manned the capstan bars. We get the term "nipper" from that.
Sailors were a rough-and-tumble lot at the best of times, and the nippers would take advantage of the sailors straining on the bars and would "accidentally" whips the nips around on the legs of the straining crew. We get "whippersnapper" from those antics.
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*Windlass could only be worked by perhaps 4 men, and they were limited to only about a uarter-turn per "heave." Not very efficient.
A capstan could use six or eight bars, and the length of the bars defined how many men could be applied. And the motion, even while removing and adding bars to clear obstructions, was more continuous, smoother, faster. On Naval vessels, it was common to have two-deck capstans that could be manned by more men.