Anchor alarms....

LittleSister said:
That's the trouble with the youth of today! What's wrong with getting up to check every 30 minutes/change of tide or whatever? It's character forming! :unsure:
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I have the perfect young crew member. He never complains, never sleeps, never becomes distracted, and importantly never drinks my good Scotch.

He does not just keep a watch every half an hour but is continuously monitoring our position. He can even do this in the dark, or when thunderstorms obscure all land. He yells very loudly if we move back even a few meters.

If we experience a significant wind-shift he has the uncanny ability to immediately tell if our anchor has moved, or if we have just rotated. Even as skipper I have to spend several minutes looking at transits or taking compass bearing before I am sure.

Now granted, if we do drag he refuses to do anything about the problem. It would be nice if he could start the engine, raise the anchor etc, but all he can do is scream about the problem.

Nevertheless, I think I will keep him.
 
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sailaboutvic said:
Could had said moon light but I also don't park on the moon ?
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Lets be honest .... there are few areas you would anchor that do not have points you can use for bearings. Even in the event of no navigational marks corresponding to points on a chart - usually there's a light or something you can take a bearing of .... if you have 2 or 3 like that ... you don't need to be able to plot it ... the fact you have 3 points you can compare bearings over time is enough ... a bit of common sense added allowing for swing etc.

its not exactly rocket science ...... and there's always the Seamans trick to fall back onto if not sure .... hand on the chain ... if its dragging - you'll feel it .. (Shame about the rope boys !!)
 
Refueler said:
Lets be honest .... there are few areas you would anchor that do not have points you can use for bearings. Even in the event of no navigational marks corresponding to points on a chart - usually there's a light or something you can take a bearing of .... if you have 2 or 3 like that ... you don't need to be able to plot it ... the fact you have 3 points you can compare bearings over time is enough ... a bit of common sense added allowing for swing etc.

its not exactly rocket science ...... and there's always the Seamans trick to fall back onto if not sure .... hand on the chain ... if its dragging - you'll feel it .. (Shame about the rope boys !!)
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It depends where you sail. I sail in some of the more outlying parts of the West Coast of Scotland. There are numerous anchorages where there are no habitations, and no lights visible.
 
Refueler said:
Lets be honest .... there are few areas you would anchor that do not have points you can use for bearings. Even in the event of no navigational marks corresponding to points on a chart - usually there's a light or something you can take a bearing of .... if you have 2 or 3 like that ... you don't need to be able to plot it ... the fact you have 3 points you can compare bearings over time is enough ... a bit of common sense added allowing for swing etc.

its not exactly rocket science ...... and there's always the Seamans trick to fall back onto if not sure .... hand on the chain ... if its dragging - you'll feel it .. (Shame about the rope boys !!)
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The problem with anchor thread is one person experiencing can be very different to another ,


You ask me to be honest and I will , in the 264 days we anchor last year and in each other year for the last ten years there been many a night when all you can see in nothing but darkness there been nights where boats have anchored near by and if they haven't turn there anchor light on you wouldn't know they where there .
So what are you going to get a fix on?
How does putting your hand on the chain help when you in bed or fast asleep ?

If all the anchoring one does is in rivers then there be most likely some kind of light , ( street light ) houses ) but some of us having anchored in a river for some years .
In my case four years ago
So unless your going to sleep with one foot on the chain some kind of anchor alarm comes in very useful .
It doesn't matter what anchor you use or chain or how experienced you are or think you are.
 
sailaboutvic said:
The problem with anchor thread is one person experiencing can be very different to another ,


You ask me to be honest and I will , in the 264 days we anchor last year and in each other year for the last ten years there been many a night when all you can see in nothing but darkness there been nights where boats have anchored near by and if they haven't turn there anchor light on you wouldn't know they where there .
So what are you going to get a fix on?
How does putting your hand on the chain help when you in bed or fast asleep ?

If all the anchoring one does is in rivers then there be most likely some kind of light , ( street light ) houses ) but some of us having anchored in a river for some years .
In my case four years ago
So unless your going to sleep with one foot on the chain some kind of anchor alarm comes in very useful .
It doesn't matter what anchor you use or chain or how experienced you are or think you are.
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Did I say I was against Anchor Alarm ??

Did I say I only anchor in rivers ?

The hand on chain - IF you read my comment properly - says as a last resort when you have suspicion you are dragging ... NOT to be your anchor alarm !!

As to each experience differently - absolutely. Also that some will experience extreme and others not. Your quoted is an extreme for most people.

I started by referring to your mentioning of street lights ... struck me as funny ... sorry you are all uppity about it ..
 
Refueler said:
Did I say I was against Anchor Alarm ??
Did I say you was ?





Did I say I only anchor in rivers ?
Did I said you did





The hand on chain - IF you read my comment properly - says as a last resort when you have suspicion you are dragging ... NOT to be your anchor alarm !!


Point taken


As to each experience differently - absolutely. Also that some will experience extreme and others not. Your quoted is an extreme for most people.


There a few who replied to this thread who are full time cruisers and they would had the same experience as myself


I started by referring to your mentioning of street lights ... struck me as funny ... sorry you are all uppity about it ..


Not uppity about it at all , you ask me to be honest and I was ,apology if you think I was
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I'm must admit I'm surprised it's not a 'no brainer' to use an anchor alarm. I could understand it if it was an expensive bit of kit but everyone has a phone and the app is free, 'what's there not to like' would be my thinking !
 
In the past, I recall (possibly erroneously) one could option a GPS enabled phone or tablet, at an extra cost. I don't keep up with developments of phones nor tablets (until I need a new one) Is this still the case or are all such devices now GPS enabled. I do make casual observation of new mobile phones and note that prices appear to increase exponentially (so surely they are all GPS enabled as standard?) - and the rate of increase is sufficiently fast to discourage constantly upgrading to keep pace with technology.

Jonathan
 
The query was about anchor alarms... Not whether common sense or good seamanship should be disposed of.
I'll get an app before I go afloat and do some experimenting...

I have often anchored and not been able to tell if I had dragged . Other times I thought I had, but actually when daylight came and the tide had turned twice I was exactly where I had started off...

Thanks for the constructive relevant replies.....
 
I'm big fan of anchor apps, I keep an old phone on the boat with no extraneous apps, always in flight mode and run Android Anchor pro on it. I can't remember the last time my anchor dragged once properly set, but I sleep much better at night with this running especially when there is a gusty SW swirling us around at anchor (which is often the case here in the Hauraki Gulf.
The real value of this was brought home to me last summer, when I watched a yacht drift steadily out of the bay we were anchored in during the small hours, with the young family asleep and blissfully unaware as they drifted close to some rocks and then across the channel towards another island. Shouting and shining a spotlight at them had no effect, but fortunately they finally woke up before they hit anything . When I saw them the next day I suggested they might want to invest in the free app...
 
I love OpenCPN. I usually set the alarm after anchoring. Following my track, I can pretty easily identify where I dropped the anchor. I set the radius based upon scope and adjust later if needed. In a tricky situation I set multiple alarm zones. OpenCPN has some cool features that allow you to set an alarm if, for instance, the boat hits the intersection of 2 zones.
 
Refueler said:
Did I say there NO areas ... am I the only person understanding the term : "there are few areas "

Blimey Guv !!
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Well you are wrong on that, there are many areas, most of the Eastern Med so probably the majority of anchored boats in Europe at any one time. Even in harbour bays once the last taverna switches it’s lights off there are no nighttime fixed points.
 
GHA said:
I find the anchor pro android phone anchor alarm better than the Opencpn one but running a raspberry pi onboard & USB GPS dongle it is indeed great to have opencpn running in the background on little power (y)
Plus you can put the GPS offset in to see just where the boat is, and look at the grib overlay for wind forecast.

2 hooks down :cool:

cU8bTt5.png


(slight thread drag, but with a Pi running openplotter/signalk you can save ais data to a file with no downside really just in case someone does something stupid like bang into you, unlikely but it will run in the background unnoticed.)
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We are running opencpn on windows 10 and we cannot make it run in the background. The app does not show up in the list for apps to run in the background. Any suggestions ?
 
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