History of the Admiralty Pattern Anchor
The anchor is of a traditional pattern known as the Admiralty Pattern, or AP, adopted by the British Admiralty in 1852, but similar in shape to anchors dating back to as early as the late 4th century BC. The U. S. Naval Academy 1891 Text-Book of Seamanship refers to this type of anchor as “a solid, iron-stocked anchor” and states that they are furnished exclusively on board ship, while wooden stocked anchors with their fixed stocks are reserved for permanent moorings
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Some modern sources refer to an anchor with this configuration as a Kedge Anchor, Fisherman’s Anchor or a Herreshoff Anchor, but this would not be historically correct for this anchor. The term Kedge refers to a smaller anchor to be used for kedging that may be a similar design but a fraction of the weight of the Bower and Sheet Anchors carried by a ship. Fisherman’s anchors and Herreshoff anchors are small boat anchors with a configuration similar to the Admiralty Pattern.
Ships transitioned away from using this type of anchor when the Stockless Anchor was developed and incorporated into ships designed with hawsepipes. The stockless anchor was patented in 1821. The process of adoption in the Royal Navy began in 1885 and was generally adopted by 1903. Of course older ships would use the old AP anchor for decades to come, and some still do.