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.

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.

Norfolk Naval Shipyard is the Navy’s “center of excellence” for anchor chain repairs, and handles that work for ships across the fleet. When the Stennis shots arrived, learning how to handle ...