Is your boat secure? Is your anchor dragging? Is there water in the bilge? Has someone boarded your boat without your knowledge? These are just some questions at the back of every boater's mind. But perhaps the most important question– the one that brings all others under its umbrella– is: are you sure your boat is okay? With a Siren Marine Connected Boat™ device, you can be. This series will explore the Power of Knowing, and the confidence, peace of mind, and overall better boating experience that Siren Marine provides. First up, one of the most common problems all boaters face: anchor drag.
A dragging anchor is something that most boaters have experienced at some point in time. The results can range from mild inconvenience to multi-boat damage, expense, and insurance claims. A dragging anchor is sometimes unavoidable and evidence of the event is often impossible to provide. The power of knowing changes that, allowing users to avoid damage and plot a picture of how events unfold. Last summer, I experienced this first hand.
During a rare break from manning my desk at Siren, I was able to sneak away to Nantucket on my Swan 42, CORBAN for a few days. Anyone who is familiar with the island knows that the harbor is jam packed throughout the summer, and dockage is near impossible to come by. This left me in the unenviable position of leaving CORBAN anchored in the channel, where the current is known to rip at 3-4 knots at max ebb and flood. My Siren Marine Sprite was reporting my position every hour, and I was confident that my anchor was holding firm.
After a couple days at anchor, I received a call from the Harbormaster that CORBAN had become entangled with another vessel. In a classic case seen in many anchorages, the circumstances of how the two boats came together were murky. Both the Harbormaster and the other boat were under the impression that my anchor might have dragged, but I was able to
provide concret evidence that my boat had, in fact, not moved and had been in the same place for a number of days. Fortunately there was no damage, but had any occurred, I could have easily cleared myself of any fault and avoided a potential costly insurance claim.
The moral of the story is that Siren Marine provides you with real security. Anyone who cruises knows the endless uncertainty of leaving your boat on an anchor. Siren erases speculation and replaces it with certainty. There are countless other examples– I spent a night aboard CORBAN during Tropical Storm Hermine, and settled in with gale-force winds battering the hull. I slept soundly through the night – knowing that my phone would alert me to any changes in my position – and awoke to find CORBAN lying exactly where she should be. Now that is what I call peace of mind.