Do you use an Anchor Drag alarm app?

While at anchor it dragging is obviously a concern...especially overnight.

Do use any of the apps I see or other methods to warn you?

If conditions are sketchy I'll use the Anchor! app. Its easy to use and seems accurate once you get the anchor point set.

Plus 1 for Anchor

Anchor Pro (which might be the same but in a paid version?) Works great!

Note on Android I had to enable screen to be always on or else Android will put the GPS to sleep (!) That needs a power brick or 12v USB connection to run overnight because the screen is on.

The Garmin 7612 has an anchor drag alarm built in. I used it last weekend. Worked pretty good.

The problem with using the chartplotter as an anchor alarm is the amount of power it draws from your batteries. I do like leaving it on long enough after anchoring though for the track lines to start making an arc. When you turn it back on again you can see right away if you have drifted.

John

In my past 40' catamaran, I used a cellphone app. The GPS below deck sucked and kept giving false alarms. Samsung Galaxy note 8. I made the alarm circle larger and larger as each false alarm woke me up. I ended up making a very large circle. Ended up like 50' from dragging on an island. Wow, close.

This Jan, I went to Florida keys.

I decided to use my new Garmin GPSmap 86 which has a much better antenna. It has a basic drag alarm, but is not very loud. No false alarms, but not enough volume to make me wake up.

I also used my cellphone GPS app again due to quiet Garmin (galaxy note 10+) and it keeps giving false alarms down stairs and I didn't get much sleep. I ended up leaving my very loud phone on the dash for better reception (was better, not perfect).

I then got a new AIS (versper marine). It uses an external GPS on the mast so it should always have a good signal. I have not tested it, but under my metal roof, laying down sideways, it gets 3-4 satellites. The vespar has it's own internal WIFI network that will send the GPS signal to the Vespar anchor alarm app on my phone. So it does not use my cellphone GPS. It also has outuputs for an external loud alarm (and silence button) which I mounted in the bedroom of my C30 which will wake me up, but hopefully not due to false signals from the very good external GPS antenna.
As a note, unlike my C30 factory AIS 600, the Vesper will pass its GPS signal to the NEMA network so all my instruments will benefit from the external high gain antenna. The factory Garmin AIS 600 also has an external antenna, but does NOT share the GPS to the network and does not have anchor alarm or WiFi either.

I upgraded my anchor also. I'm overly paranoid about dragging though due to my one bad experience and crappy cellphone GPS reception down stairs.

I use the Garmin 7612 anchor drag. I disable the depth transducer and dim the background light. I have never measured the amp draw. I assumed less than 2 amps based on the fact that the max draw is 3 amps. I have used anchor pro and found it to be glitchy. I may have not given it a chance. When it comes to anchor drag while I am sleeping I'm not willing to give it to many chances. The Garmin has given me peace of mind for a good nights sleep.

On my IPhone I use the app Anchor Alarm with Later set. I like it’s features and it has worked well.

I use my chartplotter and dim the backlight overnight to reduce power consumption.

OK, I am the outlier here.

I do not use an anchor alarm and never have in the 30 years of boating with 9 boats (3 of them tugs). We have done the Great Loop (10 months and 6,000 miles), the Inside Passage to Alaska and back, and a whole lot more. We like to anchor. Only twice, did the anchor drag in early in our boating because, "We did not know what did not know."

Today, we consistently use an anchoring system with a mathematical formula. I am particular what anchor I use and how much chain to use. We deploy and set the anchor using the same steps every time. Then, we wait and use this mantra, "If the boat does not move in 20 minutes, it will not move for 20 hours."

I do not use an anchor alarm because the equipment and the system & skills have earned my confidence that have developed over time. I am not against an anchor alarm system and I am not critical of those that do.

Another outlier here. We used an app based anchor alarm a couple times while we learned how to anchor when we first got the boat and had the stock Lewmar anchor. While we never did drag overnight the Lewmar was difficult to set to our satisfaction. We also had false alarms from the app due to just learning how to set the limits properly. Once we changed to our Rocna 15 and developed better anchoring skills we developed the confidence to bag the anchor alarm. 5 years later, including a trip up the inside Passage, we have never had the anchor drag.

Curt

An anchor alarm is another tool for safety and peace of mind. With the apps you can practice with them on land. Set the app and walk away to get an idea of how it reacts.

I use the Anchor Alarm app.


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Dock Walker":1vkrgnaw said:

The Garmin 7612 has an anchor drag alarm built in. I used it last weekend. Worked pretty good.

Click to expand...

I use it all the time but it’s not in the most intuitive sub-menu (eg navigation).


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Initially I used one but stopped after a season or so. Now, if the wind is really strong and the bottom is less than ideal, I just spend the night wide awake at the helm. Luckily that’s only happened twice in 5 seasons....

From my iPad I use the anchor watch function on my ISailor app.

Thank you to those who sent me the Private Message asking for more details on our strategy for anchoring.

Rather than putting it here, I have a detailed description on my website, http://www.captainjohngray.com and here is the link to the relevant page:

https://www.captainjohngray.com/operati ... ssons.html

This is what works for me. Do your own experimenting and research to discover what you are comfortable with.