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Maritime & Shipping vocabulary · Ports & Port Calls

Anchorage

Meaning in maritime & shipping, with examples

/ˈæŋkərɪdʒ/nounCommon term

In maritime & shipping, anchorage means: An area of water, usually marked on charts, where ships are allowed to anchor while they wait for a berth, a pilot, orders or better weather.

In Turkish: demir yeri, demirleme sahası

How it is used

VTS assigns ships an anchorage or an anchor position. Agents report how many ships are waiting 'at the anchorage', and time spent there can make a port call much more expensive.

Example sentences

  1. VTS instructed us to proceed to the outer anchorage and wait for the pilot.

  2. There are eleven ships waiting at the anchorage for the grain terminal.

Common collocations

  • outer anchorage
  • anchorage area
  • proceed to the anchorage
  • waiting at the anchorage
  • anchorA heavy metal device on a chain that is dropped to the seabed to hold a ship in place. As a verb, it means to stop a ship in this way.
  • berthA place in a port where a ship ties up to load or discharge. As a verb, to berth means to bring a ship to that place. The word can also mean a bed on a ship.
  • pilotAn experienced local mariner who boards a ship to advise the master on navigating safely into or out of a port, a canal or a narrow waterway.
  • portA town or place on the coast with facilities where ships load and discharge cargo, take on passengers and receive services such as fuel, water and repairs.

More terms: Ports & Port Calls

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