Warping is throwing an anchor either manually for a small ship or by rowing the anchor out and dropping it farther away for a larger ship. Then the ship would reel it to change position. Good for maneuvering in harbor. Etymologically related to “throwing” and essentially threading a needle across the sea.
Warp factor get you asses in the rowboat. Engage.
Have to admit, after reading the title I double checked the community for ‘onion’!
Would love to hear an expert talk be about this more. It’s an interesting idea, but seems like it would be limited in usefulness to small adjustments.
I stumbled on it when figuring out just how the hell tall ships docked and undocked without tugs. Turns out they did use tugs in the form of rowboats but they also extensively used shoreside rigging and warping.
Edit: and I should add, they very rarely actually docked in the first place because it was such a pain in the ass, so they used tenders instead mostly
This also bugs me in movies whenever someone is kicked off the boat, but they’re given a small rowboat and some provisions. Like, that wasn’t an extra boat. It serves a purpose on the ship, and everything that takes up space on a boat is precious. A “spare” rowboat could be the difference between life and a horrible death. It could be months before they find a port where they can buy a replacement rowboat.
As a sailboat enthusiast kedging is most often used as in the case of poor Blackbeard when you get caught up on something and need to move a small bit in a direction that’s against the wind or water. So usually just trying to get unstuck when you’ve run afoul of hidden sand bars or the tide shift leaves you in an awkward spot. You also might do it to help set an extra anchor if you’re worried about drifting on the tides.
Even deep water boats only have a few hundred feet of anchor rode and line and it takes a while and is a hassle to kedge out with your dinghy.
I have never in all my years of boating seen anyone do it as a method of general propulsion outside of just handling lines at the dock. It’s just sometimes your best shot.
The rope attached to the anchor chain is called the “warp”. Hence warping.
Pipe lay (etc) anchor barges do this today.
There are usually six to 8 anchor winches on the vessel. A tug comes to the barge, picks up the anchor and moves it out to some point while the winch unreels. Repeat for other anchors. Winch in to move the vessel.
This is used for precision movement/placement of the barge.
Many vessels use azipods and Dynamic Positioning System (DPS) these days.
But before DPS much of offshore infrastructure was placed by anchor barges.
