argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gould you can NOT possibly be THAT stupid.

Can you?

Your comparison between hooking a chain to a pickup truck (and then putting the
truck in gear to pull the slack out of the chain) and anchoring is flawed.

I'll waste the time required to explain just why. It won't make any difference
to you, of course, but there might be a person momentarily taken in by your
blustering bull squat who needs to be reassured that
if Ass and Teakettle both appeared on the chart, you'd draw a rhumbline to
Teakettle
but set a course to Ass.

Two practical, demonstrable, counter arguments.

1: You suggest an experiment where a cahin is hooked to a rock on one side of a
crevasse, a quantity slack is dropped into the valley, and the other end of the
cahin hooked to a truck on the side opposite the rock. You postulate that if
the
truck is put into gear the chain would be pulled straight. There are instances
where this would not be true, (perhaps a monstrous chain with links that
weighed
150 pounds apiece), but rather than counter your absurd example with an even
more absurd exception, we'll presume that the chain in use would also be
suitable for anchoring a small or medium size pleasure
vessel.

a) If you repeat the experiment with an all rope rode, or a mixed rope and
chain rode,
how would the results be different? Most assuredly, they would not.

b) what would happen if you attempt to start the great chain pull in 4th gear,
rather than first? Results would be less predictable.

2: Next time you're anywhere near a marina, try this experiment.

First, while still in the parking lot, lean as hard as you can into any 4,000
pound truck or SUV that might be on hand. Put your entire body weight against
any portion of the truck you choose- front bumper, rear bumper, passenger
door, driver's door, you name it. Make a note of just exactly how far you
manage to move that vehicle off the exact spot it occupied when the pushing and
grunting began. I could tell you what that distance that is going to be, but I
wouldn't want to spoil your opportunity to learn by doing.

Then, find somebody to let you on the dock. Rather than a 4,000 pound boat,
look for something that is more likely to weigh maybe 60,000 pounds. Many 55 or
60-foot motoryachts can tip the scales in that general area. The exact weight
of the boat isn't essential, but select something that is 10, 15, or 20 times
heavier than the pickup truck in the parking lot to fully appreciate the lesson
you can learn from the experiment.

With a boat selected, put your weight against it. The same force that could not
budge a pickup truck will move a boat rather nicely.

To get full benefit of this experiment, find a vessel with plenty of slack in
the lines and continue leaning against the hull as it moves away from the dock.
Why settle for a single physics lesson when two can be learned at once. :-)

That much lesser force is all that is required to move a boat. The force can be
applied by wind, of course. An anchor works because the force attempting to
keep the boat secured to a fixed point exceeds the force attempting to remove
it.
The additional weight of a chain rode, properly sized for the vessel and the
anticipated conditions, creates a larger belly in the rode. Mariners have
understood the benefits of gravitational force on anchor rodes for many
hundreds of years. Consider a kellet.......doesn't change the characteristic of
the rode but increases the effect of gravity.