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surfmachine · 06-08-2018, 08:42

I am old and deaf, so I wired a relay inside my spare garmin chartplotter over my aft bunk up to a strobe and a siren. Only set it in squally weather. Wakes me up fine and I can see the boars track when I am restless.

Mainly trust an excellent heavy bugel anchor and 100 metres of 10 mm chain and a great snubber. Not the alarm.

If you have to use an anchor watch app every night choose a better anchorage or get a decent modern anchor and heavy chain. Else, stay awake and organise a human anchor watch.

Keith.

Nicholson58 · 06-08-2018, 08:49

APPS are OK but we much prefer a dedicated device. We use Vesper Watchmate 850 AIS class B transponder. It has a very good anchor watch built in. It only uses about 7watts as an anchor watch. We set the watch when the anchor drops and it stays active until we depart, sometimes weeks. It logs where we are every several minutes and plots the dot on the screen.

Capt. Mike Maurice · 06-08-2018, 15:06

Android Anchor alarm apps and other tablet type apps are not as reliable as the dedicated alarms in your marine chart plotters.

p435 · 06-08-2018, 21:58

I feel it would be helpful, if the anchor apps running on mobile phones or tablet computer are described in a bit more in detail including the OS of the system

I use
- Anchor Pro from Peckish Sloth
- Android 7.1.1
- phone: Aquaris X5 Plus from bq

I think this app works fine but disturbing is that I get normally a few alarms with the message " no GPS data".

In a severe situation I additionally use my Raymarine C120 Chart plotter to track the movement of the boat and its anchor alarm.

The problem with the Raymarine anchor alarm is the frequency of the alarm sound. It is to high for my ears. I now bought an Raymarine interface which should allow me, among other things, to connect an external alarm.

Should someone have experience with connecting an external alarm system to the Raymarin interface, I appreciate any helpful information.

surfmachine · 06-08-2018, 23:12

Most of the chart plotter alarms are too soft or the wrong frequency for those of us who are aurally challenged.

Also, most dragging occurs during very windy, rainy, noisy times, so this makes alarms hard to hear. Most chart plotters and alarms are in the cockpit or nav area, I sleep in the aft cabin, too far away to hear them.

My solution was to buy a stand alone garmin chart plotter, have an electronics expert wire an internal relay to switch an output line to a cheap strobe siren combination mounted directly under the hatch over the aft bunk where I sleep. When the drag alarm goes off I hear it and see it, even without my hearing aid in and I am asleep. It also helps to see the boat position and speed etc when under way and the crew is on watch and I am sleeping or resting in the aft cabin. The raymarin plotters do not have this facility, technician said. My radar, furuno, has a similar smaller external piezio buzzer for the guard alarm, easy to hear and hard to ignore!

It really works, does not rely on a phone battery, cheap, reliable, very noisy and bright. Cannot be ignored. I have a similar strobe/siren for my bilge pump alarm and a lesser one for my motor watch on oil pressure, temperature and exhaust temperature( engine watchdog, an aussie product)

My buddy who was sleeping in the cockpit of his cat in Lagundri bay , nias, west sumatra, so he could hear the anchor drag alarm. slept through it for 35 minutes and nearly ended up on the rocks in the huge surf on the lee shore on the eastern side of the bay. A fisherman woke him by shouting and banging on the hull, only a few boat lengths from disaster. Had his pregnant wife and 3 yo daughter aboard. They sold the cat very soon after and live on land now!

I relax at anchor.

Keith.

E3Nomad · 10-08-2018, 03:03

The chartplotter app OpenCPN (available on android, Mac & Windoze) incorporates an excellent anchor alarm. Not only can you set your anchor position and size of swing circle, you can also define nearby hazards so that an alarm sounds if you drift closer to them than a distance of your choosing.

SailorRon49 · 25-01-2019, 20:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by noelex 77

This means your anchor can drag about 35m before the alarm goes off !

25 at the bow + 35 foot boat(sleeping in aft cabin) + 15 for GPS errors when most of the good satellites go over the horizon.

Capt. Mike Maurice · 25-01-2019, 20:35

I have built several experimental Android Anchor Alarms. It is very difficult to absolutely guarantee that the Alarm is active, has an accurate GPS fix, that the alarm has not been deleted by the operating system or put in the background and being updated as frequently as you assume. And that if for any reason it is not doing what you expect that you will get any warning.
In point of fact the Android operating system is NOT designed to be a one app dominated environment and attempts to do so are mightily resisted by the operating system.
For the technically minded the issues are covered in a book from o-Reilly publishing about the Android operating system.
Even the experimental apps that I have built do not give me absolute piece of mind and I have been developing software for over 40 years.

p435 · 25-01-2019, 21:00

Raymarine - I found a solution with the help of a Raymarine technician. There is an interface to which an additional speaker can be attached. I bought the interface an will do the installation in April. The interface can also be used to connect a PC.

As for really severe conditions, I sleep fully dressed in the cockpit. As we have a catamaran I can fully dry. Additionally to my alarms, I have 1-2 persons on anchor watch. This allows me to sleep sufficiently well to not get too tired to make mistakes. I did this last year twice at 6 and 7Bft winds.

And I have an pretty oversized anchor (40kg Rocna) with 100m of 10mm chain. After last years tests, I feel pretty safe with it. Still I am aware that it can drag.

@surfmachine your idea of connecting a strobe and alarm to bilge pump, oil pressure etc is a pretty excellent one. I will see if an "electronic" friend can help me.

Sojourner · 26-01-2019, 00:04

It's not very difficult: when conditions are benign, just use any phone app and sleep tight. When conditions are frisky but steady, keep the chartplotter on with your position marked, plus app, and sleep tight. when conditions are frisky and expected to change, all of the above plus set an alarm to wake you up before they change, hang out for an hour browsing facebook, make sure things are good, and go back to bed. If things are really getting down, all of the above, plus key in the ignition, at least the jib ready to go, and stay awake. It won't kill ya. Sleeping might, tho.