Best Anchor Watch/Alert/Alarms apps?

[mgl]

I use Vesper Marine’s AIS and the supplied Anchor Watch. The AIS is very good but the Anchor Watch is out standing. I anchor and often get 3 or 4 hours sleep before I drag. Anchor Watch is for me an essential tool, 4 out of 4.

[MooGroc]

Unfortunately, the Vesper app doesn't let you set the anchor
location after the fact. In my opinion, this is an essential
feature and I wouldn't consider any anchor alarm app without it.

[damianham]

Hi folks

My SmartBoat app on google Play store has an Anchor Watch function and I would really appreciate if you could take a look at it (the app is free) and let me know what you think, especially what you don't like about it, what I could improve etc. At the moment there is no SMS facility (so there is a future improvement option) but there is a function to calculate the anchor position after the anchor has set. I might have over complicated it a bit, as in addition to the guard radius and rode length there are settings for GPS antenna to Fairlead offset, Fairlead height from the waterline and an adjustment for catenary affect.

One thing to note is that it connects to the boat's NMEA or SignalK data network over WiFi for GPS from the boat's GPS device rather than use the tablet/phone GPS receiver. This has the advantage of using the depth from the ship's depth transducer in order to calculate the anchor position.

As my boat is on the hard (and likely to be for some time) I am testing in a lab environment which will have differences between real live conditions. I would really appreciate it if you could take it for a spin and let me know how useful it is. I would particularly like to know how accurate the anchor position calculation function is and what catenary adjustment you applied for a given chain length if at all.

Many thanks in advance

[mgl]

Your are right that you do not know exactly the exact position of your anchor with the Vesper software and it is a problem.

Vesper have a policy of allowing old units to be upgraded at a reduced cost. I have never been been offered this by any other manufacturer of equipment. I have just removed my perfectly functioning unit and will ship it to NZ for replacement. I am dependent on the AIS for especially sailing at night and want to keep up to date with any improvements.

Once the new unit arrives I will see if the Anchor Watch is improved and let you know.

[MooGroc]

I do love my Vesper XB-8000 I just wish the anchor app had
the late anchor set feature. I don't think it's a feature of the
unit itself but rather of the app so I doubt the new version will
be an improvement when it comes to the anchor app.

This is not a knock against Vesper. XB-8000 is billed as a
great AIS unit and it is that. The fact that it comes with an
anchor alarm feature in the app is a bonus even if it's
one key feature short of being useful to me,

[Jim Cate]

Vesper Vision AIS does have the "move the anchor after the fact" capability, and I use it a lot. Very good anchor alarm!

Jim

[Steve Bedford]

Thanks Jim. Although I have the Vesper AIS with the anchor watch feature, I have not used the “move feature yet.” Will have to practice it.
Steve

[belizesailor]

Thought of this thread as we settled into bed tonight. We are land cruising (via RV) in New Zealand. Many similarities to cruising by boat, but hey, I dont have to set an achor drag alarm! [emoji16]

[alluringarctic]

With my Android phone I use My Anchor Watch, it's loaded with features but what I like the best is the ability to see your path.

What I noticed with a lot of the anchoring apps that due to the Android system power saving overriding the apps, the apps would not sometimes get an actual GPS signal, even though some of them claim to be still working. Some apps have a setting to try to overcome the power saving, but be aware that it does not always work! Make sure to keep an eye on this if you're using these apps for the first time!

I then tried a few apps that are specifically designed to force the GPS signal to update and keep it "alive". On my Motorola Moto G5 they did not work reliably either. What DOES work though is if you force the phone screen to stay ON all the time. The "Anchor Lite" app mentioned earlier in this thread has that option, but has less other options than My Anchor Watch. So now I just keep both of them open, with Anchor Lite forcing the screen to stay on and MAW doing the real work.

[Bruce K]

I have one of these, Boathooked.com. Set and don't think about it anymore.

[Zaria]

Might be a dumb question ...but we only just started using a anchor alarm after dragging one night. But i am struggling to work out what distance to set it at? Have tried a couple of apps that have gone off during a night when all we did was turn in the wind / current without even dragging.
And the one we set using our chart plotter, we decided to test it the following day when leaving the anchorage...wasn't till about half a km away did it go off!

[CatNewBee]

You have to set the anchor point correctly where the anchor is, you can do it when dropping the anchor or later on, then you must provide bearing to the anchor an distance what equals your chain length. that is pretty easy so, your bow points to the anchor when set properly and you know how much chain you've set.

Your GPS signal has a variation of several meters too, so add this distance 2 times plus the rode length to the safe radius of the app, or what ever you may tolerate for dragging / reset. If the space is enough, and I use 40m rode, i set my safe radius to 50 or 55m. No alarm until you really drag. you can track your movements in the app or on the plotter, if you start a track, you see the movenent trail.

[CatNewBee]

Example, how it looks like on the plotter / navionics app

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Zaria

Might be a dumb question ...but we only just started using a anchor alarm after dragging one night. But i am struggling to work out what distance to set it at?

You are not alone. Many boats set their anchor alarm incorrectly.

The biggest mistake is not displacing the centre of the circle by the distance between the GPS aerial and bow. If you draw the geometry out on paper the correct setting is much clearer than trying to describe this in words.

If the anchor alarm is set correctly and you have a good external GPS aerial it can raise the alarm with only a few meters of drift without any false alarms. Such tight limits are not always warranted. A more normal allowance is 5-15m. This is easier to set, but many anchors start to slowly creep backwards before breaking out so an alert of small changes is sometimes helpful.

One guide to the correct setting is looking at the swing circle on the plotter/ tablet etc. If the alarm centre is correctly set to coincide with anchor position then in reasonable wind the curve of th trace should match the curve of the alarm sector. This is especially apparant if the wind changes direction as in this photo:

[anacapaisland42]

I think this is calling for a different approach.


Electronically an "anchor watch" is really just a "boat moving" watch, has no idea whether the anchor is dragging or not.


How about something "simple" like a separate line running from the boat "easily" down the rode/chain thru a point on the anchor terminating by landing on the sea bed independent of the anchor. Attached to an alarm on the boat.



If not down the chain/rode then from a floater buoy to an independent weight on the sea bed (again thru a point on the anchor) and then to a fixed point on the boat via a non-stretchy line where it sets off an alarm.


The objective is that if the ANCHOR moves then is sets off the "trip wire" to alarm the boat. Amp free



Look like it's waiting for an invention

:-)
Bill
On the ice at the moment