I enjoy anchoring overnight- one of the pleasures of boating is to find out of the way places and enjoy some peace and quiet. However, in the back of my mind, there is always some concern about whether the anchor will hold, particularly at the turn of the tide, and this can make one’s sleep rather light.

I was always confident in the holding of the rocna-style anchor on our previous boat. Aurora, but the holding of Molly’s pin is unknown to me. I have been using an app called Anchor Alarm to monitor my position. Particularly useful at night, it will alarm if the boat moves out of a predetermined circle. I usually test this by leaving the anchor alarm active when lifting, to check it does the job. I also leave the phone connected to power overnight, as the GPS has a tendency to drain the phone battery.

There are many such apps to choose from, but the features i was looking for are the ability to set the anchor position after dropping the pin (I’m too busy at the time!); to allow for anchoring depth and scope; the app must be able to work in the background, so I can use my phone for other things and finally, some form of graphical display of the boat’s position over time is useful.

After some research, I found Anchor Alarm fulfils all of these criteria. It’s not free and it doesn’t have the ability to remotely monitor the boat position (ie if you go ashore whilst anchored), but I felt I didn’t need that feature. The display is simple and clear and most importantly, it provided me with a sound night’s sleep!

Edit: A few days after writing this, I anchored in St Mawes and the anchor dragged. I think it was due to an improper set of the anchor and/or not enough scope. In any case, the anchor alarm earned its fee because it went off when I was down below and gave me time to start the engine and lift the anchor before we dragged onto another boat.

• Technical