Anchor drag alarm in Bedroom

Good day all, just some food for thought. I drug anchor this weekend and the alarm was buzzing away but I couldn't hear it over the generator and ac noise. I will be mounting a remote buzzer in the bedroom which wires easily to the gps that I use. The electronics shop gave me the buzzer, and its loud. Hope this might help someone else do the same because it could have been real bad!

swampu said:

Good day all, just some food for thought. I drug anchor this weekend and the alarm was buzzing away but I couldn't hear it over the generator and ac noise. I will be mounting a remote buzzer in the bedroom which wires easily to the gps that I use. The electronics shop gave me the buzzer, and its loud. Hope this might help someone else do the same because it could have been real bad!

Click to expand...

I agree with your assessment and solution.
Others will say, "I have an app that alarms when I have anchor drag." SHURG
That is their solution.

There is always at least solutions to a single problem.

My high water alarm is a 3 inch fire bell. If I dont respond to that alarm, I have drown.

It's not that I hate a 30 amp boat (I had a 50 amp boat before) but I sure would like a amp meter in the galley as a quick reminder, "You are getting close the edge of darkness, again."

Along those same lines, I was always abit unerved during overnight passages with someone on watch. Trying to sleep below in my cabin was tough, so I would sleep on the saloon sofa. I always thought that having a radar display (no controls) in my cabin would be helpful. Take a quick glimpse and feel more secure.

But for an anchor alarm... if you can't hear it then what good is it. So wiring up a buzzer in your cabin is a great idea.

I'm a paranoid anchorer as well. One of the first things I did when we got our old Hatteras is install a little Furuno RD 30 repeater next to our bed. Besides giving me depth and position at a glance, I could set anchor and depth alarms. And I could take the NMEA feed off it and feed it to the laptop's chartplotter, but I didn't like leaving the laptop open all night. It all worked out really well. I also have a little antique box compass a friend gave us as a bob voyage gift I put bedside, at a glance I could see the boat's heading and see we had clocked around with the current.

I installed a Garmin GMI 20 next to my bed. The unit runs off the nmea 2000 network including DC power. Anything running across the network can be displayed on GMI 20. Mine scrolls through depth, wind speed & direction, boat heading by compass, position, time of day, and has a built in anchor drag alarm. The display has alarms for some of the items such as shallow water and high wind speed.

Ted

I use my iPad running SeaIQ with its anchor alarm, set on a shelf above my head in the forward berth and plugged into a cigarette lighter socket. The alarm will definitely wake me up since it is only a few feet from my head.


David

I use the drag queen app on my phone.

When I first downloaded it my wife really wondered what I was getting into.

We use Anchor Pro on our Android cell phone. It uses the phone's GPS so no need for a cell connection. I put it next to me at night. And it is loud when it goes off.

k9medic said:

I use the drag queen app on my phone.

When I first downloaded it my wife really wondered what I was getting into.

Click to expand...

The last time I looked for the Drag Queen app for the iPhone or iPad, it was no longer available.

k9medic said:

i use the drag queen app on my phone.

When i first downloaded it my wife really wondered what i was getting into.

Click to expand...

lol.

You could always get an anchor that doesn't drag.
Your boat is big enough to carry one.

Simi 60 said:

You could always get an anchor that doesn't drag.
Your boat is big enough to carry one.

Click to expand...

Tell us, which is the best kind of anchor?

Lots of solutions, everyone has their favorite. I personally like the low power draw of a cell phone, which I usually leave plugged in and charging overnight, anyway. I could also remote to my Vesper or Garmin, but I'd need them, plus the NMEA bus, powered up all night.

At any rate, I totally agree with the idea of having handy access to heading data (e.g.; a compass) near the berth.

I'd consider a small multi-function display like the Garmin GMI 20, if it weren't for the obscene price (around $600 for the Garmin, but there are others in the same ballpark.) Seems there's a market out there for someone to create a small, reasonably priced device to display NMEA data. There are similar devices on Amazon and eBay to display CANBus data, which is almost the same thing.

CaptTom said:

Tell us, which is the best kind of anchor?

Click to expand...

The one that doesn't drag.

When we first bought Irish Lady, I used Drag Queen. But I quickly found the gps position in my phone every 20 minutes or so would jump out about 4000 ft long enough to trip the alarm. My large Garmin chart plotter eats 38 Watts just to drive the anchor alarm. Unsat. So I picked up used Garmin 540 and mounted it at the lower helm. Only uses 8 Watts on anchor watch and serves as a backup GPS. It has an internal antenna for easy installation. I set the alarm distance to 150 ft. So far so good. Only one false alarm. Having a Rocna helps too.
Another thing that helps is that I can leave the G540 in North Up mode all the time. If I pop out of bed at 2am I can instantly see if and what direction that I’m drifting. In course up mode, it takes too much thought to figure out what’s happening.

We went with the Vesper 8000 series AIS because it connects to our ipad (or phones) via wifi,which we take to the stateroom with us. It stays on charge all night so we can see where we are in the anchor zone with the anchor watch app, alarms if we go out of the zone plus shows other ais vessels in the area.

I use Drag Queen on my Android phone right next to the bed. Simple and works for me. And we tend to anchor out a LOT, as in months at a time. As to the anchor itself, we used a 55lb Spade with 200 feet of 3/8 chain. Boat weighs in at 16,000lbs. We have drug once in 4 years. Knock on wood.

I was told that Drag Queen doesn’t work any longer. I use Anchor on the iPhone plus we have a remote Garmin alarm in our bed room.We have a Spade also, 120lb on an 80000 pound boat. In the Bahamas this summer we found two places wher we could not get it to set.

Drag Queen does not work anymore on the latest Apple IOS for the IPhone. It may still work on older versions or Android phones. I have no means to check that.

Jeffery told me he was going to improve it so it would work but then left Garmin. I liked that app but the new one I have works just as well.

I just checked Drag Queen out in the front yard. It still works on an Android Note 8..maybe just Apple with the new updates it's a problem...

I like more information than a buzzer. This is in the sailboat, facing my head as I sleep. It can have any information I want on it: heading, location, wind speed or direction, even engine readings. It is backlit and dimmable at night, and has an alarm buzzer you can set for a variety of things. Most vendors have a similar display head.

I often set it to show wind speed, direction, heading, and depth. Sometimes DTW from the anchoring point. If the heading or wind has changed, then maybe the anchor needs to be checked as it will have veered or upset. If the wind it up maybe I should check. If my DTW to my original position is increasing, why?

Most the time, glance at it and go back to sleep. If you only have a buzzer, then you have no situational awareness.

I didn't have the issue of generator noise so my solution of an amplified speaker was sufficient to wake me when the anchor alarm went off. Fortunately for us the alarms were all false and reflected spikes in the GPS readings. This happened about once in 40 days. Since our anchor alarm (Nobeltec MaxSea) recorded the boats actual movement the spikes were obvious as the boat moved and returned 200 feet in seconds.

We have an alarm in the master It's a must
Great for normal anchoring.
But as the Captain you have to judge all factors into the situation.
Two years ago we (90 foot Westport McQueen) had to deak into Sturt bay on Texada Island.
Winds were 30 knots and we anchored across from the yacht club on a steep rock incline .
We were spilling our Martinis out there

Then probably a 150 feet off our ass
A sailboat just before dusk moved in behind us this left me mo room to move .
""Special"" smart people --True warriors with a death wish.

Winds were coming in strong and the rain was bouncing off the water.
I had to stay on the bridge and set tight range circles on the nav.
I got every thing ready.
Lots of Flashlights, wet gear and informed all we might have to move later on if needed.
I made sure that every thing was ready and told my brother how he would have to help me if things went bad .

Well they did.
Just before day break I could hear the anchor grinding on the rocks below (a big and heavy boy) The wind was up to 40 knots with higher gusts .
Then the anchor bounced and the boat moved 8 feet backwards .

Yup problems happening soon.
I fired up the engines and had every one instantly on the bridge and let them know what I wanted and what we were going to do .
I turned over the bridge to my brother and took my new LED flashlight to the front deck to watch the anchor come up and give direction of were we were to go .
First time in the pizzing rain that I learned LED does cut it .
Run for another flashlight.

Not nice on the bow with the rain and wind (to hell with rain gear).
Soon as we started to move every alarm went off .
I directed the boat across the bay and anchored 20 feet from the dock on the lea side wind side of the bay.

15 min later it was breaking daylight and we decided move out of the bay .
It was tight anyways for us.

The point of it anchor alarms are great and should be used.
But good seamanship and level heads will keep you alive

Wonder what happened to the sail boat after we took its wind break away.

Well semi, this is the first drag, I have a danforth with about 4’ spades and 300’ of 1/2” high strength chain, therefore I’m assuming operator error. There was a huge blob of mud and trash balled up on it.

I too have anchor pro. Love it. I'm now in the habit of setting it when I'm standing on the bow lowering the anchor, and can check at a glance where I am relative to that point from my bunk.

swampu said:

Well semi, this is the first drag, I have a danforth with about 4’ spades and 300’ of 1/2” high strength chain, therefore I’m assuming operator error. There was a huge blob of mud and trash balled up on it.

Click to expand...

It is said every dog is entitled to one bite. Mud build up seems often implicated in failure. Some anchors are claimed to not attract a mud build up due to convex design.

A left field thought: if the drag alarm was taken to the bar, earlier in the evening, it might not come on as a surprise in the bedroom.

Sea Q said:

We were spilling our Martinis out there

.

Click to expand...

That is a crime against humanity.

Add: and if we are at all concerned about dragging we use the anchor watch on opencpn with a star trek red alert sound file

Our bedroom on the top deck is about six steps away from the helm station

OldDan1943 said:

My high water alarm is a 3 inch fire bell. If I dont respond to that alarm, I have drown.

Click to expand...

I thought I was the only one that doesnt want to drown in their sleep.....LOL....I have an 8" Fire bell on mine. It would wake the dead so even if I have drowned, it should arouse me.

My wish is that anchor alarms be done more intelligently. I'm told Furuno is the only one that does this: the guard zone really should be a section of a piece of pie, like many radar guard zones are. This tells me if the anchor has dragged, and if we have swung, or overrun the anchor. All important in snotty conditions. The usual circle gives you little of this information. Come'on Raymarine, it's just a few lines of code.

On a previous boat I had a 100db siren mounted at my head in my bunk. First time it went off I almost died. Damn that was loud. I ended up moving it a few feet.