T&T: Anchoring and anchor watch

[John Adams]

It's interesting, this anchor watch discussion.  My old Northstar 
LORAN had an anchor watch function that required you to push a button 
when the anchor was dropped, then push it again when the anchor was 
set and the boat was extended over the rode.  This essentially 
defined the circle that the boat could move in.  If I recall 
correctly (and that is  becoming more problematic with each year) I 
could also insert a distance the boat was allowed to move outside of 
this circle before sounding an alarm.  This would allow one to 
compensate somewhat for not being precisely over the anchor on drop.

Also, my old Vigil radar also  had an anchor watch function using 
guard zones that you could set up after anchoring.  Don't recall how 
it differentiated between  something moving into the guard zone 
versus it moving into something, unless it was by timing; i.e., how 
long a target stayed in the zone.  Never really used it 'cause it 
used too much battery to run all night with no gen set or engine running.

In both cases though we are talking about 20 year old technology that 
addressed the issues being now discussed.  Are we going backwards or 
is the new technology simply not addressing the needs of the anchored 
mariner?  Perhaps we are staying too long in marinas today versus 20 years ago!

John Adams
m/v Oriental  CT-T35
New Bern, NC