depth finder
- Thread starter billA
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this debate will go on forever...
yes, but then you'll know how deep the water was after you ran aground. Many people are really scared of putting a hole in a perfectly good floating boat. Don't worrry!!! I worried for months......before I finally said what the hell.....if properly planned and using the proper speed bore (a hole saw can cut up the fiberglass) and adequate use of 3M 5200 to seal the transducer, the thru hull depth is so much more reliable.... If you still do not want to put a hole in the boat, get a shoot thrugh the hull transducer and epoxy it to the hull. The worst transducer is a transom mounted puck. The turbulance made by the boat can skew the depth readings. Mike C. O'28 "Da Capo"
yes, but then you'll know how deep the water was after you ran aground. Many people are really scared of putting a hole in a perfectly good floating boat. Don't worrry!!! I worried for months......before I finally said what the hell.....if properly planned and using the proper speed bore (a hole saw can cut up the fiberglass) and adequate use of 3M 5200 to seal the transducer, the thru hull depth is so much more reliable.... If you still do not want to put a hole in the boat, get a shoot thrugh the hull transducer and epoxy it to the hull. The worst transducer is a transom mounted puck. The turbulance made by the boat can skew the depth readings. Mike C. O'28 "Da Capo"
You don't have to go through the hull
As long as your hull is not cored, you can mount an inside transducer that will be perfectly fine. As someone described in another thread here recently, you test for a spot by putting the transducer in a baggie of water or oil and moving it around the hull(preferably forward of the keel on a relatively horizontal spot) until you get a clear reading on the instrument. Take it out of the bag, dry it off, and embed it in a large dollop of silicone or marine caulk. Make sure that there are no air bubbles in the caulk in the view of the transducer. The marina service manager who advised me on this when I did it last spring explained that the only downside to in-hull vs. through-hull is a loss in max depth capacity. If the depth sounder is promoted as sounding to 400 feet, it will only be accurate to 200 or so. As my sailing is primarily on Chesapeake Bay, almost nowhere deeper than 100 feet, this is not much of an issue. I found perfect accuracy on a six week bay cruise I took last spring.
As long as your hull is not cored, you can mount an inside transducer that will be perfectly fine. As someone described in another thread here recently, you test for a spot by putting the transducer in a baggie of water or oil and moving it around the hull(preferably forward of the keel on a relatively horizontal spot) until you get a clear reading on the instrument. Take it out of the bag, dry it off, and embed it in a large dollop of silicone or marine caulk. Make sure that there are no air bubbles in the caulk in the view of the transducer. The marina service manager who advised me on this when I did it last spring explained that the only downside to in-hull vs. through-hull is a loss in max depth capacity. If the depth sounder is promoted as sounding to 400 feet, it will only be accurate to 200 or so. As my sailing is primarily on Chesapeake Bay, almost nowhere deeper than 100 feet, this is not much of an issue. I found perfect accuracy on a six week bay cruise I took last spring.
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