There is no reason ships should be anchoring at all. They can all use GPS these days to stay in place, without dropping anchors.
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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I cannot imagine that. Huge Evergiven trying to stay in place.
Bow thrusters and azipods have changed the game. Most modern ships don't really need anchors.
Not that I know about anything marine in nature, but I looked up "azipod" and it describes itself as a thruster. Bow thrusters have "thruster" in the name. Based on that, I would assume each of those require energy and thus fuel. My understanding is that anchors, once deployed, are passive. Disregarding (only for the purposes of this conversation) the ethics, is that not why they're still used?
Even when a ship is anchored (or even docked) the engines are usually still running to generate power (unless there is shore power, which is becoming more common, but still not that common). The extra power needed for the autopilot to use the pods and thrusters to stay in place isn't much more than is needed to keep the power on.
Gotcha, thank you for the edification.