If you are going to get any sleep while anchoring you need some modern tools. Setting an alarm on the GPS will let you know if you are dragging outside whatever circle you set up. But a wind meter with alarm set for say 20 knots or whatever will let you know if the wind has come up or increased. This kind of warning will let you know of a change in conditions, hopefully before you actually start dragging and in time for you to take steps to prevent it from happening. Even more so that you may be alerted to others dragging around you. Simpson makes a model IS-15 system that I have used and all in all I liked it. Another alarm which can be set is with a guard alarm on the radar. This will let you know if something approaches your vessel or moves away. IN any event all of these alarms have one major problem. They need to be of such intensity that you will hear them under the prevailing circumstances. This may mean building a relay which can not always be done and using it to turn on some custom noise maker. Mike Capt. Mike Maurice Tualatin(Portland), Oregon

At 09:17 AM 2/13/05 -0800, you wrote: >it from happening. Even more so that you may be alerted to others dragging >around you. >Simpson makes a model IS-15 system that I have used and all in all I liked it. We are going to go with the Navman 3100 Windmeter. It has a 250 mil amp circuit to drive an external alarm. The alarm can be set for some arbitrary wind speed. It is not as fancy as the deluxe model 31?? but that is targeted at sail boats and the feature set is not what we need. Mike Capt. Mike Maurice Tualatin(Portland), Oregon