Setting the GPS Anchor Alarm

psneeld said:

I didn't suggest that knowing how many here probably sleep in "footies"....

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I resemble that remark

The primary reason we boat is to anchor out. I am a paranoid anchored. So I do two things, sometimes three.

1) I wait until the anchor is set before setting the anchor alarm on the main Furuno system, which is very easy on my system. The boat, and thereby the center of the Furuno's circle, as explained above is whatever distance from the anchor the rode geometry dictates. This gives me a fudge factor on that alarm. I set the radius according to how much room I have, and/or predicted wind and current shifts. Typically, I like to be awakened when a shift takes place even though the anchor is well set and holding. Keep the track active. If there isn't a natural clocking in the works, I can set the circle very tight.

2) I have a Furuno RD30 repeater mounted by my bedside. It will show me Lat/Lon and depth and any other NMEA sentences I car to send it from the main system..., including waypoints. The anchor alarm function on the RD 30 Is somewhat arcane, but very useful. What it measures is if you have drifted a self-defined distance from a given waypoint. So I set a waypoint to where the anchor actually is and track to that. This is very handy because I sometimes cannot hear the main anchor alarm upstairs due to being sound asleep, or door is closed or if the generator is running. Mostly I wake up every now and then and check lat/lon. I also keep a little compass by the bedside which makes it easy for the groggy captain to see that the boat is now pointing in a new direction.

3) If triple paranoid, I have my laptop by the bed and have the anchor alarm set on it too, and I don't have to go upstairs to see what happened.

You know, when this sort of thing is going on:

I try to anchor by mid afternoon. I'am then going to be up & alert for enough hours to be confident that I've got a good set. Being on the river out of the channel or even a slough there is enough current to easily tell if I'am dragging. By the time we go to bed I don't have any trouble sleeping thru the night. I have woke up startled when some drift floats against the hull or thunderstorm blows thru and I'll get up & stand watch until its over. I can understand how someone anchored where they were subject to drift from a wind change or tidal current may desire a warning if their anchor drug.

rwidman said:

I just set the alarm for double my scope or a little more. If it goes off in the middle of the night, I get up and look to see if I'm dragging. If not, I just add 25' or so to the alarm and go back to bed.

So far, I've never dragged.

BTW: I added an external buzzer to my Garmin plotter.

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Exactly. So does setting the alarm ensure you never drag Ron, or does a good set with a good anchor ensure that..?
Just think of all the extra uninterrupted sleeps you would have had, without the false alarms.

We have Drag Queen on a 3G iPad (3G/4G iPads are the only ones with built-in, stand-alone GPS receivers). So we don't need connectivity of any kind to use it as an anchor alarm. We feed the iPad into a small battery-powered amp and speaker. So we can leave the iPad in the main cabin where GPS reception is excellent and still have an alarm that is easily audible throughout the boat.

Other than to test it we haven't had occasion to use this setup yet but will when we take our fall cruise into BC.

I agree with Peter in that an anchor alarm is a nice-to-have item but it's certainly not essential and it's far less important than a good anchoring system.

caltexflanc said:

... I wait until the anchor is set before setting the anchor alarm on the main Furuno system, which is very easy on my system.

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Actually the track of your movement at anchor is why I mark the location as I drop the anchor. I don't back down until the anchor is on the bottom and if it doesn't catch PDQ I start over anyway. In the morning my track shows me circling generally around the middle of the anchor alarm limit and not out at the edge as yours does.

I think my biggest complaint about setting the alarm on my Furuno system is that I have to leave both GPS units on to monitor an alarm and manually turn off the displays. This is probably a factor of the installation - there is one alarm buzzer for the two processors and it is connected to the radar/nav/depth unit to sound those alarms, for the GPS processor to sound an alarm both processors must be active.

Dave

Peter B said:

Exactly. So does setting the alarm ensure you never drag Ron, or does a good set with a good anchor ensure that..?
Just think of all the extra uninterrupted sleeps you would have had, without the false alarms.

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Nothing ensures that one never drags, but I've paid a lot of attention to learning how to anchor properly and I use what I've learned to get a good set. I boat in a tidal area with some pretty strong reversing currents so my boat will swing a couple times while we are sleeping.

The alarm is a backup like belt and suspenders and it makes my wife happy.

BTW: At my age, I'm up to pee a couple times a night anyway so uninterupted sleeps are a thing of the past.

psneeld said:

The simplest, no power anchor alarm is drop a weight over the side about 10 feet from your anchor...tie the line attached to that weight to your ships bell or to a can of bolts on deck and you are now an old timer...

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I was going to suggest that, more as a joke than a serious suggestion. I think in a tidal area with reversing currents you would have a tangled mess by morning.

magicbus said:

In all fairness to cell phones, to my knowledge at least the Drag Queen uses true GPS and not tower triangulation so it's pretty accurate. .............

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I know very little about smart phones as I don't have one. My wife and I went on a land trip once and the other guy had the bright idea of using his phone for travel information.

Once we got into the mountains, his phone lost the signal and couldn't tell us where to go. We not only got lost going there, we got lost again on the way back.

The next day I ordered a GPS for the car.

rwidman said:

I was going to suggest that, more as a joke than a serious suggestion. I think in a tidal area with reversing currents you would have a tangled mess by morning.

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Nope...gotta be smarter than the equipment you use....and many generations of boaters were/are...

Note that my two pics are from different , though somewhat similar events, the track was very similar. The anemometer blew off the arch after it hit 60mph, over in a town about three miles away in the path of the same micro cell, a gust of 80 was recorded. Anchor held, bimini didn't fare as well.

I want to be alert when this type of thing is going on. As you can see, we were slowly circling around due to current shift (in this case) when whoom, a big squall hit, stretching the rode out to the max. Anchor (a Delta 88, and I don't mean the Oldsmobile) held fine as you can see from a "free fall" in the opposite direction.. the ultimate test (disclosure, we were in sticky mud). Squall passed, and back to the original circle.

If you don't anchor where this kind of scenario doesn't happen, and the pull on the anchor will always be in one direction, and the where the bottom is reliable, then no, I suppose an anchor alarm is not essential. But if you have it, why not use it? Stuff happens out there.

magicbus said:

Actually the track of your movement at anchor is why I mark the location as I drop the anchor. I don't back down until the anchor is on the bottom and if it doesn't catch PDQ I start over anyway. In the morning my track shows me circling generally around the middle of the anchor alarm limit and not out at the edge as yours does.

I think my biggest complaint about setting the alarm on my Furuno system is that I have to leave both GPS units on to monitor an alarm and manually turn off the displays. This is probably a factor of the installation - there is one alarm buzzer for the two processors and it is connected to the radar/nav/depth unit to sound those alarms, for the GPS processor to sound an alarm both processors must be active.

Dave

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Dave, as said in my post of a few minutes ago, I want to be aware when something extreme happens. Just me. Plus, hitting the button when the anchor hits the bottom isn't always accurate as depending on the bottom it may take some distance for it to set. Again, personal style and preference.

You should look at how your Furuno network is configured and change that, it is in the installation guide or they can walk you through it, their support group is excellent. I don't have this issue and the unit on the flying bridge stays off when not under way. Battery capacity really isn't an issue on my boat, but having a "Black Box" system, it is easy to turn the monitor completely off when I am not looking at it.

George -

I will look into that. My FB GPS can stay off when not in use as it is completely separate but I have two Nav v2 units configured together in the PH. They share things like the alarm buzzer and the map chip but have separate displays. The advantage is I can monkey around on one and not give up my charts or monkey around on the other and not lose my Radar.

Dave

Dave, in my case just I have one unit at each helm, networked together, with a 17" screen for each at the lower helm. Really comes in handy when I want all radar on the main screen, and/or different plotter ranges, but the compromise in my case is that someone has to go upstairs to reconfigure that unit if need be while underway however in practice we haven't had to do that much at all. The middle screen is available to hook a computer or other video source to, such cameras.

OK I understand what you have. You can see the two units - one on either side but they are networked together.

Dave

Hi boys, the two pics you put up of your helms, where are the actual control units mounted and what's the advantage of hooking them up to an LCD screen?

Very interested in this as I'm currently designing my helm ready for building.

Cheers
Hendo

My control units are immediately beside each monitor - you can see the trackballs on the right side of each unit. George's single one is below the Red/Blue/Green buttons to the right of his displays. For me the LCD monitors are because size matters - they are each 17 screens.

Dave

magicbus said:

My control units are immediately beside each monitor - you can see the trackballs on the right side of each unit. George's single one is below the Red/Blue/Green buttons to the right of his displays. For me the LCD monitors are because size matters - they are each 17 screens.

Dave

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Ditto that, the extra size is really wonderful vs a 12 or even 15. Here's my upper helm unit, which uses a 19:



I like Dave's set up. If I were to change one thing about mine I would have the lower helm unit's screen mounted on the dash to the right of the helm with the controller right by it, maybe bump it up to a 19. You do have to crane your neck a bit if you are standing rather than sitting. But after well over 10,000 miles of cruising this boat, I still haven't got around to doing that despite many other modifications.

I have gotten away with using fairly standard non-reflective (getting harder to find as is the 4:3 aspect ratio) computer monitors, about 300cd brightness. The way the lower ones are mounted it is extremely rare they are affected by sunlight, I can only remember once, when the sunrise was coming in just so. The upper one is shaded a bit by that polarized lid, and is on a RAM swivel mount so easy to adjust vs the sun and all in all has worked great, you can see it through the lid when laid flat, handy in the rain and at night (dimmer overall). Underway, that upper unit is elevated more and facing to the left where the helm is. Works remarkably well in sunlight other than a direct hit. I had the bimini off for a number of months this summer.

The processing units are in the very large console on the flying bridge, right above the lower helm and directly below the upper unit, very easily accessible. Someday I'd like to put a second screen on the bridge, but that is way way way down The List.

Thanks lads. I'll now reconfig my dash plans now lol.

Can someone post a site to check out and maybe buy, the "Drag Queen" program. I`d google it, but Sydney is in the middle of Mardi Gras, doubt I`ll turn up an anchoring drift warning system....
We are also in the grip of an east coast low pressure system which is costing lives, and spoiling the weekend.
My Garmin GPS seems to have a minimum 100metre drag setting which is too much, in some places I`d be on the rocks before that.

Google Play Store or iStore.

Bruce
DragQueen is one word for the Google search, the other way you might not like what the search engine comes up with....

Here is a link to the iTunes app store:
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/dragqueen-anchor-alarm/id489294173?mt=8

It works great and it is free thanks to Jeff for his work.

psneeld said:

The simplest, no power anchor alarm is drop a weight over the side about 10 feet from your anchor...tie the line attached to that weight to your ships bell or to a can of bolts on deck and you are now an old timer...

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And what happens when the tidal currents or winds change? Meanwhile, the anchor is probably holding, particularly if it is a Claw.

markpierce said:

And what happens when the tidal currents or winds change? Meanwhile, the anchor is probably holding, particularly if it is a Claw.

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nothing...it's only designed to handle one tide/wind shift or two....but how long do you need it for? 8 hours to get sleep is all...

if you let out the right amount of line and got the weight near the anchor...it should only alert you after the anchor has drug (the amount of feet between the weight/anchor).

I have ordered one of Rick's dedicated anchor alarms. It's a rough approximation of what I think an anchor alarm should be. While some of you old salts don't see a use for it, I think it will greatly help Bess and me sleep better at anchor. I know at least one other community member here has one. I will keep you posted on it's success or lack thereof.For the small price of the Beta unit ($175), I can't see a downside.

psneeld said:

Nope...gotta be smarter than the equipment you use....and many generations of boaters were/are...

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OK, what's that supposed to mean?

markpierce said:

And what happens when the tidal currents or winds change? ...........

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The lines wrap around each other and when the anchor drags, it drags whe weighted line with it so there's no "alarm".

When you try to retrieve your anchor, either the next morning when you're ready to move on or in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm, the lines are hopelessly tangled and you can't get your anchor back onto the boat.

Some folks are better off just staying in marinas every night.

rwidman said:

The lines wrap around each other and when the anchor drags, it drags whe weighted line with it so there's no "alarm".

When you try to retrieve your anchor, either the next morning when you're ready to move on or in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm, the lines are hopelessly tangled and you can't get your anchor back onto the boat.

Some folks are better off just staying in marinas every night.

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My dad and uncle used to use that technique way back in the day and that is exactly what happened. I was the designated anchor ape. A simple solution to impeding raising the anchor is to use fishing line with weights on one end. You still have to make sure the catenary and thereby total length on the "alarm" line is the same as that of the anchor line.. the lighter line will tend to be shorter if you are not careful and you will get false alarms. I learned all this at an early age when there were no electronic solutions and some of our favorite spots were a little iffy holding wise, not to mention the red neck ground tackle system they had cadged together at no cost.

rwidman said:

OK, what's that supposed to mean?

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Same as "you have to be smarter than your tools"
Said about many mechanics who had a box full of tools & couldn't fix anything.

caltexflanc said:

My dad and uncle used to use that technique way back in the day and that is exactly what happened. I was the designated anchor ape. A simple solution to impeding raising the anchor is to use fishing line with weights on one end. You still have to make sure the catenary and thereby total length on the "alarm" line is the same as that of the anchor line.. the lighter line will tend to be shorter if you are not careful and you will get false alarms. I learned all this at an early age when there were no electronic solutions and some of our favorite spots were a little iffy holding wise, not to mention the red neck ground tackle system they had cadged together at no cost.

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the method was used successfully by many for generations...what else can I say?
Oh I did say something else but repeating it may just annoy people....