Sea anchor

Common card · No. 292265

A sea anchor (also known as a parachute anchor, drift anchor, drift sock, para-anchor or boat brake) is a device that is streamed from a boat in heavy weather. Its purpose is to stabilize the vessel and to limit progress through the water. Rather than tethering the boat to the seabed with a conventional anchor, a sea anchor provides hydrodynamic drag, thereby acting as a brake. Normally attached to a vessel's bows, a sea anchor can prevent the vessel from turning broadside to the waves and being overwhelmed by them. Early sea anchors were crude devices, but today most take the form of a drogue parachute. Larger sea anchors are so efficient that they need a tripping line to collapse the parachute for retrieval. Being made of fabric, a sea parachute may be bagged and easily stowed when not in use. A similar device to the sea anchor is the much smaller drogue, which is streamed from a vessel's stern in strong winds so as to slow the boat to prevent pitchpoling or broaching in an overtaking...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Ed Dunens, CC BY 2.0