While ships’ anchor chains vary in length, many ships carry about 12 shots of chain, and each shot is 90 feet long, Browne said, which equals about 1,080 feet of anchor chain.

The anchor and chain system aboard the USS Ford is very, very heavy. The anchor itself weighs 30,000 pounds. The chain is 1,440 feet long and each link weighs 136 pounds.

Here we see an anchor drop that's actually going quite well until its not. The operator is cautiously letting the chain out just a few links at a time before braking to prevent any runaway ...