Depth Finder

[Tom Hoffman]

Ever since I knew I was going to be sailing inland waters, I knew that it would be important to have some way of knowing just how close I was to the bottom. All the fancy methods that are available to sailboaters were always over my budget.

I decided to get a Garmen 90 Fish Finder/Depth Finder. It was around $89.00. I wanted one that I could not have to mount on the outside of the hull or have to have a through hull opening for the transponder.

I read a posting on some forum about mounting the transponder inside the boat in a container filled with water. The author explained how he did it and claimed that it worked. Now you have to realize I have no clue how sonar works.

I roughly followed his directions. It worked.

Here is how:

I ran the wires for the transponder forward from the cockpit to the under the "V" berth space. There is a lot of space there that is not used for much but storage of stuff that is not needed very often. I epoxied the mounting bracket for the transponder to the inside of a clear heavy duty plastic food storage container that had a tight fitting lid. I bought an extra lid of the same type and cut a large hole through one lid to let the transponder go through. I then cut around the second lid so it would just fit inside of the rim of the first lid and cut drilled a hole just the diameter of the cord and cut a slit through the edge of the plastic lid so I could get the cord to the hole. I then epoxied the slit lid down on to the lid with the bigger hole and came up with a fairly water tight fit.

I epoxied the box to the floor of the boat as level as I could get it and filled the box with enough water that the transponder would always be under water even if we were healing over some. Snapped the lid on and tried it out. It worked like a charm. We could even see fish, not that I was concerned with the fish, but my wife took advantage of them and caught a few.

It is amazing what you can find on the INTERNET if you look a bit.

Tom...

 

[c_witch]

Depth sounder

Hiee,

Thats an interesting idea. I have decided to go with a Piranah150 fishfinder as they offer alot more detail then just a depth. I like the idea of getting an idea as to what the bottom contour is as well. In effect with yours being mounted up in the V-Berth end of the boat its almost a forward looking unit . My question is does the keel not effect it in any way? Our boat does have a keel stringer running the full length stem to stern and it appears to be quite thick. Or did you mount yours offset to avoid the beam shooting thru the keel?

Brina

PS we can get a puck type transponder for ours to affix inside the hull but again the issue is with the keel as I don't want to mount it off to the side otherwise it'd be looking off to the side rather then straight down.

 

[Tom Hoffman]

My boat is fiberglass and does not have that keel stringer you describe. My transponder is mounted in front of the keel ballast about 3 feet or so. The fiberglass seems to have no effect at all.

Could you mount the box on top of the keel stringer to get it mounted in the center?

I just put epoxy on the edges of the box that contacted the hull itself. It was more than enough to hold the box securely.

 

[Merlin Clark]

To find a good spot for the 'ducer, (free of voids or other things that interfere with the sound waves) you can put it in a gallon size ziplock with enough water to fill the void between the face and the hull (maybe half full) and then place it in different areas until you have a good return.
Having the bag wet on the outside helps too.

 

[CaptDon01]

Try using wax toilet rings to mount the puck.....some have used this to locate a good spot and either left it in place, of cleaned it up and used epoxy to mount it.

Don