A capstan is a vertically mounted drum, powered manually or mechanically, used to raise large weights, such as anchors. Unlike its cousin, the horizontally mounted winch (or windlass), which can be documented as far back as the 5th century BC, the capstan’s certain pedigree extends only to the late 14th century AD.
In 1962 a shipwreck was discovered protruding from an eroding river bank near Bremen, West Germany. It proved to be a Hanseatic League trading vessel of the type called a cog and subsequently was dated to 1380. Mounted atop her partial afterdeck, just forward of the tiller, was a crude capstan, hardly more than a trimmed tree trunk that penetrated the deck and was seated atop the keel. Four bars radiated from its head, by which means a like number of men could walk it around, hauling in on a rope coiled about its barrel. The capstan’s principal use undoubtedly was to raise the yard of the vessel’s large single sail.
In the 15th century, the flat-bottomed, slab-sided, single-masted cog was supplanted by the larger, more refined two-masted holq. Instead of being mainly open, it had complete decks and a bigger, more capable capstan that was powered by more than four men. Indeed, some holqs were equipped with more than one capstan.
As they evolved and became larger, capstans were fitted with pawls, which ensured the drums would turn in only one direction. Eventually, capstans were used not only to raise yards and weigh anchor, but to assist in transferring cargo. It was a particularly useful piece of equipment in the ever-larger men-of-war; the more numerous crewmen could operate more powerful capstans to move multiton spars, anchors, and guns.
With the continued growth in the size of ships, particularly warships, by the mid-17th century capstans came to be mounted both on the weather deck and the next deck below, one over the other so that they might be connected to work in concert when additional power was desired. Normally, the upper one serviced the spars and rigging while the lower handled the anchors. The number of capstan bars per head grew to as many as 16, with the capstan crew numbering more than 150 in some instances.
Anchor cables also had grown and could no longer be bent to a snug fit around the capstan drum, so innovation was needed. The result was the introduction of the voyol, or messenger, a continuous cable of lesser dimension that was bent around the capstan, run forward to a sheave, or roller, near one hawse pipe, across under the bowsprit to another sheave near the opposite hawse, then aft again to the capstan. In the run from hawse pipe to capstan, the voyol was parallel to the anchor cable.
When weighing anchor, the two cables were nipped together by a series of light lines fastened with quick-release hitches, each attended by a ship’s boy or landsman. As the incoming cable proceeded aft and neared the maw of the main hatch, the attendant boy (the “little nipper”) slipped the hitch and the anchor cable went below to the cable tier while the voyol continued on to round the capstan. The boy trotted back forward to repeat the process.
On occasion, the capstan could be used to advantage in “kedging” a ship. In that situation, a special lightweight kedge anchor was hauled out to its attached cable’s full length by a ship’s boat. Once dropped and set, the men at the capstan would “stamp and go,” hauling the ship forward by sheer brute strength. At the same time a boat crew might be hauling a second kedge forward on the other anchor cable to repeat the process, thus “walking” the ship ahead despite the dead calm. The U.S. frigate Constitution used this gambit as one way in which she outlasted a pursuing British squadron in a 50-plus-hour chase in the summer of 1812 (see “The Constitution’s Great Escape,” June 2012, p. 32).
The decade following the War of 1812 saw major changes in capstan construction, as cast-iron spindles supplanted tree trunks as axles. The lower portions of capstans also were cast so as to accommodate the links of newfangled anchor chains. Initially, ships had hybrid systems, with one anchor fitted with chain and the second yet with hempen cable. Eventually the transition was complete, ending the era of wooden capstan drums, voyols, and little nippers.
A unique event in the history of the capstan occurred in 1820. In that year, following the first Atlantic crossing by a steam-powered ship—the auxiliary steamer Savannah—American Sailing Master Briscoe Doxey invented a means of moving a sail-powered warship when there was little or no wind. He called it his “propello marino.” Doxey’s system involved “strapping on” temporary paddle wheels powered by the capstanmen. Axles would be mounted in opposing gunports roughly amidships and paddles installed in their outboard hubs, giving the wheels a Tinkertoy-like appearance. Inboard, a modified form of the voyol was installed, connecting in a continuous loop the drums mounted in the inner ends of the paddle-wheel axles to a capstan. To improve rotational speed, the voyol was fitted to go around the outboard ends of the capstan’s bars rather than the smaller diameter of its drum.
After the Board of Naval Commissioners authorized a full-scale demonstration, the Constitution was so equipped and actually achieved three to four knots under the impetus of her straining capstan crew. The board was sufficiently impressed to order Captain Jacob Jones, who took formal command of the frigate shortly after the trial, to take the propello marino with him to the Mediterranean, where it could be given a real field test. But when Jones arrived at his first port of call, Port Mahon, Minorca, he offloaded the invention into the Navy’s warehouse, and there it was lost to history.
European exhaustion following the Napoleonic Wars resulted in decades of burgeoning maritime trade. Particularly in America, there arose the practice of using music to accompany shipboard work gangs involved in heavy labor. In the merchant marine, this resulted in the genre of music known as “sea chanties” (“shanties” is a 20th-century corruption)—tunes whose rhythms and lyrics complemented the work at hand and enhanced the cooperative effort of all sailors involved. Special chanties evolved, including capstan chanties for weighing anchor, hoisting sails, hoisting ships’ boats out and in, and moving cargoes. Over time, chanties became a part of maritime culture internationally. On board men-of-war, where silence was demanded of all but those giving orders, some captains allowed a fiddler or fifer to play a tune with an appropriate rhythm to the stamp and go of the capstanmen.
As the 19th century advanced and new technologies drastically altered shipboard life, the days when large groups of men were needed to accomplish a task waned. Powered machinery proliferated, so much so that by the dawn of the 20th century, a much-reduced capstan was used almost exclusively to weigh anchor. As the century progressed, even the word “capstan” was diminished, so that, outside of the anchor chore, any drummed line-handling equipment, whether functioning vertically or horizontally, generally was called a winch.
Perhaps the only reminder we have today of the capstan’s critical importance to our predecessors is when those on the bridge hear that so-welcome call from the boatswain on the forecastle, “Anchor’s aweigh!”