Best Anchor Watch/Alert/Alarms apps?

[SkipMark]

The free Anchor! app gives us everything we need (drag-warnings, boat track overnight, re-set of the anchor), but it may be only available on the Apple devices. It tends to draw down the battery on a phone overnight, so requires attachment to a charge source.

[CookiesnTequila]

We live on anchor, and I've tried so many apps I can't remember them all. Every one I tried either had false alarms, shut itself off or some other occasional failure. Not always, but once was enough for me to lose confidence.

What works best for us is Open CPN.

We use TimeZero on a Furuno plotter and TZ software on a pc along side the Open CPN at the nav station. I hit the MOB button on the plotter just as the anchor hits bottom (i also have a chain counter at the helm which helps). That both records the precise position of the anchor and shows me exactly how far I've pulled back from it (the Nav to function), which is also invaluable at showing that the anchor is set and not dragging (it shows precisely how far the boat is from wher the anchor was dropped. After I'm anchored it's a one minute job to manually transfer the lat lon of the MOB (anchor) to my OpenCPN and set the anchor watch. OPCPN also lets you set two rings at the same time which is great if you're close to something and worried about a wind shift etc.

I leave my AIS and my dc powered PC running all the time, and have a decent speaker on the pc for the alarm. The PC and AIS take minimal power and Open CPN works great. I have the added benefit of a detailed track inside my anchor circle at all times.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

you are right, it is the caption / icon that says Anchor lite, in the app store ir is listed as anchor watch.Attachment 180076

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

here the iconAttachment 180077

Maybe that's just how they differentiate between the free and paid versions?

Originally Posted by DeepCut

Anchor Alarm (paid version) with "Late Set" feature so you can activate app for approximate location of anchor when you forgot to do it as anchor being lowered.

Is that Anchor Watch/Alarm by Peckish Sloth? Or Sailsafe Anchor Alarm by HCSoft? Or...?

Originally Posted by SkipMark

The free Anchor! app gives us everything we need (drag-warnings, boat track overnight, re-set of the anchor), but it may be only available on the Apple devices. It tends to draw down the battery on a phone overnight, so requires attachment to a charge source.

Yeah, not seeing that one for Android...

-Chris

[anacapaisland42]

I use an anchor off the stern, doesn't use batteries and if the boat drags it makes it rock like crazy and wakes anyone asleep.
Bill

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by CookiesnTequila

We live on anchor, and I've tried so many apps I can't remember them all. Every one I tried either had false alarms, shut itself off or some other occasional failure. Not always, but once was enough for me to lose confidence.

What works best for us is Open CPN.

We use TimeZero on a Furuno plotter and TZ software on a pc along side the Open CPN at the nav station. I hit the MOB button on the plotter just as the anchor hits bottom (i also have a chain counter at the helm which helps). That both records the precise position of the anchor and shows me exactly how far I've pulled back from it (the Nav to function), which is also invaluable at showing that the anchor is set and not dragging (it shows precisely how far the boat is from wher the anchor was dropped. After I'm anchored it's a one minute job to manually transfer the lat lon of the MOB (anchor) to my OpenCPN and set the anchor watch. OPCPN also lets you set two rings at the same time which is great if you're close to something and worried about a wind shift etc.

I leave my AIS and my dc powered PC running all the time, and have a decent speaker on the pc for the alarm. The PC and AIS take minimal power and Open CPN works great. I have the added benefit of a detailed track inside my anchor circle at all times.

Hmmm... Interesting; I'm not really interested in OCPN, but I'll have to think more about TZ.

I can hit MOB on the real plotter as the anchor drops. That's about 30' from the anchor, but at least a semi-known distance. That plotter is NAVNet 3D, essentially the same as TZ, and has a great built-in anchor alarm... but the alarm sound isn't loud enough to penetrate to sleeping quarters. (I could fix that, with wires or a baby monitor or something). OTOH, it also uses too much power to leave on all the time, unless the genset is running (and we don't like to do that overnight).

But I can transfer the MOB coordinates to TZ on the laptop inside the house. Then maybe there's a way to couple that with the anchor alarm function. I haven't found that capability, yet...

The basic TZ anchor alarm on the laptop version seems to only by a circular fence, with the center being at the location of the laptop when the anchor alarm function is initiated. Haven't found a way to edit the anchor "location."

(The other two nav apps we use for general purposes are similar; it's just a circular fence, of radius X or diameter Y.)

I'm also grappling with the idea of correction for where the anchor really sets. I can mark where the anchor dropped, but that's not necessarily -- almost certainly seldom -- the final location where the anchor is really stuck in. I can be pretty exact with rode distance to the anchor, but it starts getting more inexact given not knowing where the anchor is with real precision. I could set the anchor, then drive back up the rode and take a more current location reading... but around here that'd probably add significant time to the process unless I wanted mud all over our foredeck...

In the grand scheme of things, I'm only just trying to improve the accuracy of our process... so it's not like something is really broken.

-Chris

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by ranger42c

Hmmm... Interesting; I'm not really interested in OCPN, but I'll have to think more about TZ.

I can hit MOB on the real plotter as the anchor drops. That's about 30' from the anchor, but at least a semi-known distance. That plotter is NAVNet 3D, essentially the same as TZ, and has a great built-in anchor alarm... but the alarm sound isn't loud enough to penetrate to sleeping quarters. (I could fix that, with wires or a baby monitor or something). OTOH, it also uses too much power to leave on all the time, unless the genset is running (and we don't like to do that overnight).

But I can transfer the MOB coordinates to TZ on the laptop inside the house. Then maybe there's a way to couple that with the anchor alarm function. I haven't found that capability, yet...

The basic TZ anchor alarm on the laptop version seems to only by a circular fence, with the center being at the location of the laptop when the anchor alarm function is initiated. Haven't found a way to edit the anchor "location."

(The other two nav apps we use for general purposes are similar; it's just a circular fence, of radius X or diameter Y.)

I'm also grappling with the idea of correction for where the anchor really sets. I can mark where the anchor dropped, but that's not necessarily -- almost certainly seldom -- the final location where the anchor is really stuck in. I can be pretty exact with rode distance to the anchor, but it starts getting more inexact given not knowing where the anchor is with real precision. I could set the anchor, then drive back up the rode and take a more current location reading... but around here that'd probably add significant time to the process unless I wanted mud all over our foredeck...

In the grand scheme of things, I'm only just trying to improve the accuracy of our process... so it's not like something is really broken.

-Chris

The Android Anchor watch / Anchor lite (see screenshots above) allows manual anchor setting relative to current position and also shows the current GPS accuracy / possible deviation on the screen. Just make the secure zone double the size of the rode length used, no false alarms and reliable dragging warning.

The pro version shows the track afaik, if you have intrnet access you can see your position on the Map. Alternative use the lite version and the chartplotters track function to see your trail around your anchor.

I prefer the track function of the navionics hd app.

[CatNewBee]

... looks like this...

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

The Android Anchor watch / Anchor lite (see screenshots above) allows manual anchor setting relative to current position and also shows the current GPS accuracy / possible deviation on the screen. Just make the secure zone double the size of the rode length used, no false alarms and reliable dragging warning.

The pro version shows the track afaik, if you have intrnet access you can see your position on the Map. Alternative use the lite version and the chartplotters track function to see your trail around your anchor.

Thanks, useful info. Is that "allows manual anchor setting relative to current position" by coordinates? Or by azimuth and distance? Or both? Or...?

-Chris

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by ranger42c

Thanks, useful info. Is that "allows manual anchor setting relative to current position" by coordinates? Or by azimuth and distance? Or both? Or...?

-Chris

there are 3 options
- current location
- advanced curren location (bearing and distance)
- gps coordinates

The pro version has a lot more features, the app can send alarms via SMS if needed when on excursions on land.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by ranger42c

I'm also grappling with the idea of correction for where the anchor really sets. I can mark where the anchor dropped, but that's not necessarily -- almost certainly seldom -- the final location where the anchor is really stuck in.

In hard or medium substrates a good, rapidly setting anchor will set almost immediately. Less than a metre is common.

In softer substrates the distance will be longer, but it has to be very soft before the distance is enormously high.

However, it is important to allow for the displacement between the GPS antenna and the bow where the anchor is dropped. As the GPS antenna is frequently near the stern, this can be a considerable distance. In our case it is about 14m.

The trace of the track as you drop the anchor is generally very accurate and this is a good method of determining the drop point, but you need to allow for the distance between the GPS antenna and the bow.

[Gaia]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

In hard or medium substrates a good, rapidly setting anchor will set almost immediately. Less than a metre is common.

In softer substrates the distance will be longer, but it has to be very soft before the distance is enormously high.

However, it is important to allow for the displacement between the GPS antenna and the bow where the anchor is dropped. As the GPS antenna is frequently near the stern, this can be a considerable distance. In our case it is about 14m.

The trace of the track as you drop the anchor is generally very accurate and this is a good method of determining the drop point, but you need to allow for the distance between the GPS antenna and the bow.

I also have to disagree with the anchor being in a different location from where it was dropped. We almost always dive on our anchor, well at least in tropical waters. (-: , and it is almost always within a metre of where it was dropped as shown by the track of course. Accurate enough.

Jim

[jmschmidt]

A sailor that nervous needs to stay on land.

[hlev00]

Boat Beacon has worked pretty well for me. You can either set the anchor point when you drop it, or what I usually do, aim the ipad/iphone towards the bow after you are set, and have Boat Beacon use some reasonable offset to estimate the anchor position. On the negative side, it seemed to use a lot of battery on my iPad when leaving it on while I was away on shore for the day. It will text or email you a message when the boat goes outside the guard area.
There may be some tuning that could improve battery usage. I also find the interface to be a bit confusing when looking for settings or to drop the anchor.

I too like to use Navionics with tracking on while I am on the boat. It gives me a visual sense of how the boat is doing. It also gives me a good idea of where the anchor dropped. I recently started using SeaIQ for my chartplotting while underway. It has an anchor feature but I have not had a chance to try it yet.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

there are 3 options
- current location
- advanced curren location (bearing and distance)
- gps coordinates

The pro version has a lot more features, the app can send alarms via SMS if needed when on excursions on land.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by noelex 77

In softer substrates the distance will be longer, but it has to be very soft before the distance is enormously high.

However, it is important to allow for the displacement between the GPS antenna and the bow where the anchor is dropped. As the GPS antenna is frequently near the stern, this can be a considerable distance. In our case it is about 14m.

Yeah, that's what we've got: soft mud.

Our GPS antenna, or several of the portable devices, are about 25-30' aft of the bow, depending... but that's not a big issue to work around, haven't had any problem compensating for that.

Just noticed at this last anchorage that we probably dragged the anchor 10-15' as it was still setting.... and then another 10' after that as the winds piped up. (We had room to let it ride, so did that.) One of the few times when the wind applied more "horsepower" than we did with the engines when we were getting set up.

This was also one of the times we've had to re-try setting the anchor; the first try wasn't satisfactory. It's a very soft mud bottom in that area, and I suspect it's maybe also all covered with leaves now. And we were probably pushing it in there, with only 5:1 scope for those conditions...

-Chris

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by jmschmidt

A sailor that nervous needs to stay on land.

Probably shouldn't ever try to learn how various things work, either. And shouldn't ever want to try to improve technique...

-Chris