There will be times when an anchored ship in the US Military needs to move fast and go after a rapidly increasing situation and task which must be accomplished immediately. If the anchors are deployed then they need a capacity to drop the rest of the chain and leave the anchor there. With a backup anchor on-board.

The anchor, which is left will be fitted with an RFID homing tracking device and it can be retrieved at a later date by specially fitted UUV underwater unmanned vehicle. The UUV will pick up the chain via a cable it attaches and bring that cable up to the ship which will then hoist the cable and anchor chain up until which time the actual anchor clears the ocean bottom.

Perhaps a study should be to determine how much time could be saved if the anchor system retrieval was not an issue? Could the ship, which was already running, move fast and be gone saving ten minutes or more? If so, ten minutes in a high stress situation could be of major value indeed.

There maybe other uses for this technology for other vessels and uses and an RFID retrieval system makes sense for anyone involved in UUV or ROVs also. In fact there are many ways this technology can be used for other things that can also become a huge concern. So we need to be thinking here and consider all this in 2006.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/