‘Baby monitor’ for anchors launches

Slovenian maritime start-up company SeaVision has launched the presale of its smart anchoring system VisionAnchor.

The system, designed for sailing and motorboats between 10m and 40m in length, anchoring up to 20m deep, made its public debut at METSTRADE 2021 last month. It has an underwater camera placed above the anchor connected to a buoy, and allows captains and crew members to watch the anchor underwater in real-time. It is described as putting ‘eyes on the anchor’.

“Just like a baby monitor for your anchor,” explains Matija Jašarov, the co-founder and inventor of the product. “I lost an anchor once and started thinking; if everything around us is getting smarter, why does anchoring remain so old-fashioned?”

The underwater camera is not the only advantage of the system – there is an alarm that sounds if the anchor moves and poses danger, enabling the user to react in time. SeaVision says that, unlike most anchoring alarms, which rely on the vessel’s position and calculate the anchor dragging by a large radius around the anchor, the VisionAnchor has a location module inside the buoy and the self-adjusting power spring system keeps the buoy directly above the anchor. As a result, users get submeter accuracy of the anchor’s position on their smart device. By setting an anchor alarm geo-fence radius from 3-20 metres, users get accurate warnings and avoid false alarms, which are common in apps that use the device’s or vessel’s location.

The company says its presale will run until 30 January 2022, or until all 100 units are sold.