If you examine the cap badges and such for Naval personnel, you may notice that the symbol they use is a “fouled anchor”, i.e. an anchor that has become entangled in its anchor line. It seems to me that this is a symbol of ineptitude in seamanship, not something the Navy should choose as their emblem.
Is this supposed to be a reminder of the dangers of bad rope-handling, or what? What is the origin and significance of this unusual symbolism?
According to this site:
The Oxford Dictionary of Ships and the Sea notes that the fouled achor is used as a decorative element, but that it is retained because it is aesthetically more pleasing. You get the impression that a lot of hunor about the guy who designed it or approved it is floating around, but this is just another case of art not imitating life.
Just FYI: The Navy doesn’t use “rope.” We use “line.” Of course, they’re the same thing; however, it’s just that the naval terminology is “line.”
I don’t think that the original idea was a fouled anchor - ships in the old days used some much line and rigging that it must have been impossible to think of a ship without thinking of the lines - every seaman must have spent a thousand times more effort on squaring a line than on hauling an anchor. Maybe the original idea was an anchor and line, not a fouled anchor. Could it be the person designing it was an upper class artistic twit who never physically had to work with anchors and lines, and didn’t realize that he (if you insist, she) was showing real sailors would consider a mistake?
"The Navy doesn’t use ‘rope.’ We use ‘line.’ Of course, they’re the same thing; however, it’s just that the naval terminology is ‘line.’ "
Bit if the rope is attached to a sail then it’s a sheet, right?
No, only certain lines attached to sails are called sheets. Broadly speaking, the line that is used to control the sail’s placement to the wind is the sheet.
For example, the line attached to the top of the sail (to haul it up) is a halyard not a sheet.