My suggestion would be to ask you wife what hand signals she wants to
use for different anchoring tasks/commands. Then YOU memorize her
signals.
The signals she comes up with, she will recognize easier because the
are more instinctive for her.
Mark E. Willliams

Good suggestion.

We tried to keep signals as few and intuitive as possible:

pat head = ahead
pat bum = reverse
arm vertical = neutral

point right, left, forward, etc. = steer that way.
when raising anchor, point in direction of anchor rode

thumb up/down = more/less throttle, only when setting the anchor

- We also took turns anchoring so that we each knew what the other would do
in a given situation.
- We anchored so often that my wife (who usually was at the helm) would feel
the anchor start to bite and swing the bow around and knew to ease off the
throttle at that point etc. For weekend cruisers, this wouldn't be
applicable.

--
Evan Gatehouse

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