When I use google to search for anchor information I always use “-boat” and “-yacht” so I don’t have scroll though hits that are irrelevant.
Ships in an anchorage area are most likely swinging on one anchor and the ships are manned by professionals. Pleasure boat anchorage can be more entertaining. Some weekend warriors don’t observe how others are anchored. Some will be using two anchors off the bow, others anchored fore and aft and others leaving their boats unattended with insufficient scope.It’s only entertaining until one of these unnatended boats breaks free and heads your way.
The other issue is being able to recover the anchor easily. When heaving in if there is too much strain on the chain the anchor windlass will not have enough power to heave in. The correct move in this case is to stop heaving and correct the situation (wait or kick ahead or whatever).
Better yet pay out a little. If not, (with the system I am familiar with at least) if the anchor windlass is overloaded it’s possible to damage the hydraulic system. For example if the windlass is stalled under load and a swell rolls through.
In that case the ship could be left in a undesirable position with no easy way to recover the anchor. In our case minor damage only, the windlass continued to work but was overhauled in the next shipyard.
So, my policy is don’t work the edge, if it looks like bad weather coming get out while it’s still easy.
Indeed, in hard sand and a stiff breeze the anchor can become set almost too well. My relief was picking the hook in such a situation and he got to an “up and down” situation with increasing swell. I believe he was shifting anchorages as we did around St. Paul back in the day. Anyway, a large swell came through, and as the bow rose the anchor didn’t break free-- instead the first shot of chain parted somewhere in the middle. Somewhere on the bottom of Lukanin Bay, there lies a really nice anchor. Tragically, I had to do my next hitch with only one anchor. Moral of the story is to be patient and give the anchor time to work its way out.
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I had an owner that I had done a couple of deliveries of his 65’ cutter rigged yacht who also had a large gin palace. We were swapping marina berths one day so the gin palace was closer to his home. He decided to do some fishing with an all chain rode in rather boisterous conditions and the anchor set too well. We were summoned and got the anchor out by using AHTS procedure running a chaser down the chain but it was rather hairy manoeuvring a heavy displacement yacht with a bowsprit determined to spear the yawing mountain of chrome and glass.
Or the electric system, if one is so unfortunate to have electric winches / windlasses. I have suffered through their quirks for far too many years and after one particular event which burned up a motor while trying to heave an anchor well past the safe time to depart the anchorage had passed, I make a point to remind the mate on the bow to flop the riding pall over and let it do its thing. Over speed in the opposite direction and burning up a motor because a captain kept her kicked ahead for too long led to one of the longest (12 hour) emergency repairs I’ve ever been subject to. All while a vicious storm continued and we were hanging on with two shots in the water. The anchor eventually made it up and you could almost shave in the polish job it got from the bottom. 
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I mostly sailed on tankers with steam powered anchor winches, they always worked. For safety reasons no electric motors were allowed. A couple of hours before arrival at a port we could here the explosive sounds, loud bangs of the cold steam pipes on deck settling as the steam was applied from the engine room all the way to the forecastle deck, nice sound.
We left an anchor off St Paul as well, not the night the All Alaskan went aground but the night after.
After we cut loose from the All Alaskan we went down to the SW side of St Paul and anchored . All that day and into the night the fishing fleet was coming in, lots of chatter on the VHF. A few stragglers coming in late. They were smaller than us so they tucked in closer to the island.
We sat all night in, I don’t recall ,50 kts maybe more without any worries. Next day however late in the afternoon a swell started to come from the west. All the fishing boats that had anchored inshore from us one by one picked up and moved to the SE side of the island.
The regular captain wasn’t there that trip, it was the mate from the other boat. He had very little sea-sense. I’d checked the anchor and it was coming up bar tight every time a swell passed. I suggested to the captain we should move but he said we had been all right through the night and day so we’d be all right for another night.
That night on the 00-06 the chain parted. We were getting blown out to sea so were were able to get the engine going and under control without any problem.
On a latter trip that same captain ran that same ship aground on the north side of the Aleutian Peninsular somewhere. I was in Maine taking a trip off, when I got back the company had gone out of business.
Last I heard of that guy he was working for Coastal, ran aground in Puget sound one night,
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A tripline on the anchor might have saved you some grief. Useful on hard mud or rocky bottoms. Here is a colorful demonstration:
Some guys just seem to be constantly followed by bad luck . . .
I used to sell and install Maxwell electric windlasses. We told the skippers to NEVER use the electric motor to move the vessel up to the anchor - always power up and take up slack. Obviously too much of a good thing leads to other issues like the anchor rode in the prop.
2 posts were split to a new topic: Anchoring in Deep Water
The last ULCC I sailed on was built by an oil major with no expense spared. The steam winches were totally enclosed and were whisper quiet. It was generally the practice in winter to warm through passing through 49 north and leave them ticking over until berthing.
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He had a grapnel onboard that he could have used instead of the Bruce anchor but he was better at making money than driving a boat.
A common affliction also present in civil aviation.