Acts 27:30

And as the shipmen were about to flee... — The hour of danger called out the natural instinct of self-preservation, to the exclusion of better feelings. It was easy for the sailors to urge that the ship needed anchors fore as well as aft, and, while pretending to be occupied about this, to lower the boat which they had before hoisted on deck (Acts 27:16), and so effect their escape. The boat, it might appear, was necessary to their alleged purpose, as their ostensible aim was not merely to cast anchors from the bow, but to carry them out (as the word which St. Luke uses implies) to the full tether of the cable’s length.