DragQueen Anchor Alarm

Turn a Smartphone into an Anchor Alarm

By Peter Swanson

July 17, 2012

Using the terms “cruising” and “drag queen” in the same sentence is bound to conjure a certain mental image, but the only bottom topography that matters here is that of your anchorage. DragQueen is a smartphone app that’s an anchor alarm brought to you by Jeff Siegel, who also runs ActiveCaptain, the interactive online cruising guide. Siegel, who cruises on his 53 Defever, says he was unhappy with other alarms because they tended to go off not only when the anchor was actually dragging but also during momentary losses of GPS accuracy. As with any anchor alarm, the boater establishes a boundary as a range ring from the hook, but also sets how much time out of bounds must elapse before an alarm sounds. Those extra seconds give the GPS time to get its bearings. By virtue of being on a smartphone, DragQueen can be used with bluetooth speakers or plugged into the vessel’s audio system through the auxiliary jack to create a more forceful clamor than the “neep, neep, neep” of the average chartplotter.