from an Indian cargo ship that lost its anchor chain when the brakes caught fire and a tugboat that nearly sank when an anchor accidently fell on its bow to a naval ship anchor chain that broke free and nearly took out the entire crew and much more here are catastrophic anchor drop failures caught on C now ship anchors are heavy tugboats are rather small put them together and you get this viral clip from October of 2008 we're not sure where in the ocean this anchor failure happened all we know is someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time our tugboat captain positions himself near the bow of the cargo ship then without warning the ship drops Anchor It smashes against the tugboat and sends our captain overboard luckily tugboats are built to take a beating they're like the tanks of the sea so we imagine this one could sail back to Port as for the captain you can see him swimming back to his vessel before the video cuts out the USS teraa was a Navy assault ship that operated between 1976 and 2009 it was the second vessel named after the battle of teraa which took place during World War II it measured about 820 ft long and could travel at 24 knots roughly 28 mph hour on January 17th of 2001 the USS teraa attempted to Anchor in Victoria Harbor off the coast of Hong Kong what was supposed to be a standard procedure took a dangerous turn when the break assembly on the port anchor failed causing the entire chain to fall into the ocean you won't believe how fast this thing moves When Gravity takes over [Applause] luckily nobody was hurt when the last bit of chain snapped like a bullwhip in case you're wondering the combined weight of the anchor and chain was 28,000 lb or 104 tons now there's a lot of nautical terminology in this video luckily we found a US Navy slideshow explaining the entire operation firstly a fathom is a unit of nautical measurement equal to 6 ft shots are the individual lengths of chain making up a ship's anchor cable each shot is equal to 15 fathoms or 90 ft you know you've reached the end of a shot when you see the white painted chain links this video comes from the windless room of the USS teraa it's where the crew will release enough of the anchor and chain to hold the ship in place once they're satisfied they're supposed to engage the brake which is that hand wheel you see them turning there are teeth in a hidden compartment that are supposed to stop the chain from moving when the brakes fail the anchor chain Falls freely and since each link in that chain weighs about 250 lb there's 's no stopping it once it gets going it's safer to get out of the way and let the chain sink they can always retrieve it later drowning isn't the only thing you have to worry about when working on the open ocean just ask this oil rig worker whose entire life flashed before his eyes while on the rig one night it was November 14th of 2011 the oil rig was anchored out in the ocean as deck Crews went about their business bu everything was running as planned then something snapped keep your eye on the Chain stretching across the floor it snaps at the point where it bends over the deck and whips back toward our rig worker luckily he manages to get out of the way before the chain lands where he stood you can see the top of his yellow hat darting across the bottom of your screen a few rig workers gather near the broken chain as the dust settles the man with his hands on his hips is the one who is nearly struck he sits on the deck likely to catch his breath and slow his heart his buddies come to see if he's okay we imagine he'd rather be anywhere else in the world right now think about how much strain that chain must have been on it's not like something was pulling it up extremely fast it's snapped back like an elastic a picture perfect example of potential energy becoming kinetic [Music] energy anchor chains sit in a massive oil in What's called the chain Locker the last section of the chain the one attached to the ship itself is called The Bitter End Crews use a series of brakes to slow the anchor chain and stop it at their desired length but when those brakes fail the weight of the chain can drag it down to Davey Jones's Locker the only thing keeping it attached to the ship is The Bitter End crew members aboard an Indian cargo ship learned that lesson the hard way when their brake system failed what happened next is a prime example of how dangerous these anchors can [Music] be [Music] the machine you see flaming is called the windless it's a pulley used to heave heavy objects like the anchor or a fishing troll behind the windless is the brake hand wheel you can see where our crew members abandoned their post once the brakes fail the last place you'd want to be is anywhere near that massive out of control chain now as we mentioned anchor chains are connected to the ship at The Bitter End if you need to leave your anchored position quickly or if your brakes fail you can release The Bitter End allowing the anchor to fall freely into the water you'll find a bright red Sledgehammer next to the bitterend release pin it's the most obvious break in case of emergency object you'll find on cargo ships like these when anchor brakes fail it's usually due to years of wear and tear so when this break failure occurred on a brand new boat in Germany everyone pointed their fingers at the ship Builders it was March 16th of 2008 crew members were testing the chain brake system to ensure everything was in working order the test seemed to be going well at first our crewman let out a few feet of chain and then applied the brakes next he let out a little more you can tell how much by the number of white sections that go by by our count he let out two shots of chain roughly 180 ft then everything goes horribly wrong somewhere along the third shot they lost between N9 and 10 shots before the anchor finally stopped either the brakes kicked back in or the chain reached The Bitter End on the bright side it's better to know there's something wrong with the ship before you sail into the open ocean this last clip isn't a failure in fact everything went according to plan this time the USS Wasp is an amphibious assault ship built byles ship building the Mississippi based company has been making naval ships since 1938 this one is actually the 10th US Naval vessel to Bear the name wasp since 1775 the Navy is always testing its systems that includes the anchor release and Chain break on June 9th of 2017 the crew aboard the USS Wasp gave Spectators a a rare look inside the windless room where they conducted a routine anchor test first of the as you can tell a lot of communication is involved when it comes to dropping anchor everyone needs to be on the same page if they're not things don't run as smoothly they could anchor in the wrong location or Worse lose their anchor entirely these tests were in preparation for the Wasps 2017 deployment to the Asia Pacific region she was carrying a squadron of f-35bs along with other military assets if you enjoyed this video and want to see another just like it then be sure to click the link on screen now with that thanks for watching and be sure to tune in next time