Built at Anchor

Anchoring is the most vulnerable thing a cruising sailor does — and the moment we have the least control over. HoldFast exists to give some of that control back.

Why we built it

Every anchor alarm we tried had the same flaw: it trusted the phone to stay awake. But phones sleep. GPS quietly drops. And most apps say nothing when it happens — they just go silent, leaving you anchored with no protection and no warning, exactly when you think you're covered.

After one too many nights checking a phone that had stopped tracking hours earlier, we decided the alarm should be built the other way around: if the app loses confidence in its GPS fix, it should wake you — not go quiet. Accurate position, and honesty about when it isn't accurate, became the whole point. An anchor alarm that sleeps is no alarm at all.

Who's behind it

That experience shapes every decision in the app: which alerts matter at 3am, how loud is loud enough, why the radius needs a sensible margin, and why crew ashore should be able to watch the boat from a browser without installing anything. If it hasn't earned its place on a real anchor watch, it doesn't ship.

What we believe

Own your anchorage, once. HoldFast is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. A safety tool shouldn't stop working because a payment lapsed mid-season.

Free should be genuinely useful. The free tier is a complete, working drag alarm — not a locked demo. Lifetime adds the features that matter for serious cruising: true background monitoring, track history and remote watch sharing.

An app is a tool, not the skipper. No alarm replaces good ground tackle, adequate scope and awareness of conditions. HoldFast is there to buy you time and warn you early — the seamanship is still yours.

Learn to anchor with confidence

The same experience behind the app goes into our anchoring guides — practical, no-nonsense advice on setting an anchor alarm, getting your scope right, and reading a crowded anchorage. Free to read, written from the water.