Capt. Nak has this useful item at his MV Independence blog:
Recently while on a trip down to check the MV Independence, a boat neighbor at the dock stopped me and asked about anchoring. He said that many times he and his wife get into this shouting match because she’s up at the bow dropping the anchor and he’s running the boat. She’s screaming at him to do something, but with her back turned, and the sounds of the engines, he only hears "Bob, mumph, blah, blah, @&#%!" He said he watched us come in to a local anchorage once, and how without a word, you calmly walked to the bow, your wife took the helm, and viola’ you were anchored. Never a word was heard between you two. Of course my wife gave me a dirty look and said, "why can’t we do that!" He went on to comment that even when you dock your boat, even in trying conditions, you seem to have everything arranged and nary a word is said, and when a word is said, it’s calm not shouting.
I offered him to come aboard, and share with me a finger of my favorite Canadian Rye. I explained that after 22 years of successful boating and 32 years of successful marriage, we have come to develop some routines. Otherwise, we would not be so successful in either boating or marriage. There was a time when we too did the shouting routine, but found it just didn’t work. We anchor out 90% of the time when we go boating, so we had to come up with something. It had to be simple, clear, and effective. The idea of anchoring hand signals was born. We’ve been using them for over 15 years now and they work great. Letting my wife work the helm also gives her some experience working the boat. And by me doing the anchoring I sleep better at night. I then demonstrated and discussed with him each of the anchoring hand signals that we had developed.
