Description & Context

Picture the foredeck of a late-1800s Great Lakes steamer or big schooner: weathered planks slick with spray, heavy bitts and chocks up forward, and—bolted through the deck beams—a stout, waist-high iron capstan. It’s essentially a thick, spool-shaped drum (often cast iron or steel) designed so wet lines don’t slip as they wrap around it.

On an 1880s–1890s working boat, you’d commonly see two “flavors”:

• Manual capstan (older / simpler): a vertical drum with holes for capstan bars. Crewmen “ship” the bars, lean in, and walk it around in a slow circle. Every step loads the line tighter; every pause is held by the mechanism so it doesn’t run back.
• Powered capstan (increasingly common by late 1800s on steamers): the same visible drum above deck, but driven by machinery below—so the capstan turns with a deep, steady pull rather than pure muscle. (On many ships, the capstan function is integrated with the anchor windlass/capstan head setup up forward.)

What it does on a Great Lakes ship: it’s the “deck muscle” for heavy mooring lines and warping—snugging the ship along a dock, hauling a line in against wind/current, or helping handle ground tackle operations when fitted as part of the windlass system.

Current Status & Location

Still on wreck, great example of of a Capstan

Credits: Tom Rutledge