Long range Forward Sonar for raymarine e-series plotter?

[roland stockham]

True but they had a longboat not a rib + outboard. You only need a 2 person crew but it is easier with three

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by roland stockham

True but they had a longboat not a rib + outboard. You only need a 2 person crew but it is easier with three

We've actually tried this a couple of times, and it isn't as easy as you make it out to be. The difference is that the typical inflatable dink gets blown about pretty easily and it is (at least in my experience) hard to direct the yacht from such an unstable base. Longboats with a dedicated leadsman and several oarsmen are a different beast, and too, they were usually not doing this in an active sense... rather the ship would be at anchor and the longboat trying to establish a safe passage. This is rather different than us trying to get into an anchorage safely with one person in the dink and one person on board trying to watch the dink, listen to the radio and talk back to the dink, steer, watch the depth gauge and be ready to hit emergency reverse in a big hurry!

I prefer to use our old Probe to look ahead in real time and go damn slow.

Jim

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by roland stockham

True but they had a longboat not a rib + outboard. You only need a 2 person crew but it is easier with three

Assuming the rib is on davits, not the foredeck and the engine is mounted and you are already in safe calm water and .....
We use the dinghy and handheld depth sensor when we want to check the swing area or so sometimes when we want to go checkout some area where we might want to reanchor.
The FLS gets used a lot when poking into anchorages looking for the drop spot. It is definitely on our Nice-to-have list.

[leftbrainstuff]

1000 ft is over ambitious for an affordable forward scan sonar.

We have the B&G forward scan sonar and love it. You get at least a boat length of reliable depth when gunkholing which is sufficient.

We also use it to follow contours. The forward scan depth is set to water depth and is a good redundant depth sensor as well.

Don't expect to see surface obstructions like logs, containers or mobs. Sonar will not work in air or in any water that has been churned like surf, near shore or near the surface.

Forward scan sonar gives you a extrapolated depth ahead and nothing else.

We consider it second in value to our AIS for improving our situational awareness.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

1000 ft is over ambitious for an affordable forward scan sonar.

We have the B&G forward scan sonar and love it. You get a boat length of reliable depth when gunkholing which is sufficient.

We also use it to follow contours. The forward scan depth is set to water depth and is a good redundant depth sensor as well


Our separate depth sensor is set to depth under the keel.

What's your rationale for the settings of your two depth sounders? We set our standard Sounder to waterlevel, aka the same as the chart we are navigating by.

We set the FLS to keel depth, as we are using it to avoid putting the keel in the mud.
So they are 6.5ft, 2m, different in readings.

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by Paul L

What's your rationale for the settings of your two depth sounders? We set our standard Sounder to waterlevel, aka the same as the chart we are navigating by.

We set the FLS to keel depth, as we are using it to avoid putting the keel in the mud.

We don't"t have additional side scan or vertical sonar.

The main depth sensor is depth under keel like any other vessel. This is separate to the forward scan.

The B&G forward scan sonar also includes a depth sensor. We set this to water depth which makes it simple to compare to chart depths when doing a circuit of a new Anchorage. Also makes it simple to calculate anchor scope without having to add air height of the roller plus keel depth.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

We don't"t have additional side scan or vertical sonar.

The main depth sensor is depth under keel like any other vessel. This is separate to the forward scan.

The B&G forward scan sonar also includes a depth sensor. We set this to water depth which makes it simple to compare to chart depths when doing a circuit of a new Anchorage. Also makes it simple to calculate anchor scope without having to add air height of the roller plus keel depth.

You can adjust your standard depth Sounder using it's offset to read whatever you want. We have ours adjusted to surface water, aka the chart.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Paul L

You can adjust your standard depth Sounder using it's offset to read whatever you want. We have ours adjusted to surface water, aka the chart.

Surprisingly (at least to me) the Interphase does not have keel offset or any such sort of display adjustment. So, in our case it is reading depth below the transducer which is neither fish nor fowl... about 1 1/2 feet below the WL.

One soon gets used to the proper depth sounder reading a bit differently.

Jim

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Surprisingly (at least to me) the Interphase does not have keel offset or any such sort of display adjustment. So, in our case it is reading depth below the transducer which is neither fish nor fowl... about 1 1/2 feet below the WL.

One soon gets used to the proper depth sounder reading a bit differently.

Jim

Yeah, that is surprising. Sounds like engineers who really don't understand the area they are working in.

[CatNewBee]

Simrad and B&G have one too, but it works only with their chart plotters.

There even are water drones with imaging sounders, but this is not the solution when entering a cut.
You want to see whats in front of you, and if the sun is shining at you or the water is muddy you cannot see the
ground from the bow. It's good to have something to guide you on top of what you see from the bow.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"this is a ridiculous price point..."
Let's see now. Only one? vendor is willing and able to make the equipment, and there's been no mass market for it, and one other has actually gone off the market after unimpressive sales....
If there's only one party willing to try making and selling the stuff, I might think "reasonable" means amortizing ten million dollars worth of R&D costs over the first thousand units. Does that change your opinion of what "reasonable" is?

Just because we want something, doesn't mean a charity should come into existence to produce and support it. Yes, it would be a nice product if it could be made at all, and even better if it only cost half of what a smartphone does. If you think that is possible, seek funding partners, and you've got a great business opportunity.

Well it is ridiculous, because you wont get a return of invest if you develop a product nobody is willing to pay for. You have to sell a reasonable volume for the ROI, and if you sell it for a price, that is worth it, you will make profit.

BTW. The "Hardware" is the sonar sensor, it is sold for 600€. The other components are a analog/digital interface, that translates the signal to IP protocol messages and an of-the-shelf mini-computer with the imaging software and the graphic card for HDMI / VGA interface output and keypad.

Manufacturing wise the whole thing would cost around 500..700€. If you sell this stuff for 3k€ you might sell 20+ times more units then with a price point of 14k€. If you want to really dominate the market, you'l sell it for 2k.

You cannot expect to get ROI for your R&D with only 1.000 units sold.

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by Maka

I have fwd looking sonar on my boat.
Pretty useless.
Cannot "see" anything on the surface ,,,, logs etc.
Does not see far enough ahead to avoid collision at speeds above 1.5 knots.

Forward looking sonar will never detect surface objects. Detecting objects on or near the surface is extremely difficult from a surface ship. Militaries have trying to solve this problem for decades.

Much more effective to tacjle this problem from the air.

Wr have the B&G forward scan sonar. Very useful to learn a new anchorage. Having a bottom profile a boat length ahead in shallow water is very useful.

[leftbrainstuff]

Originally Posted by roland stockham

Traditionally the ships boat was sent ahead with a lead-line. These days there are some good cheap hand held depth sounders. Crew in the dingy with a radio could be a viable alternative in many cases and give as much range as you want.

Have you done this with a small crew, think husband and wife?

[CatNewBee]

That's the purpose of my search.

Main reason will not be floating objects, but the ground structure ahead to not hit a rock or a coral reef , find a good anchorage and easier enter the cut in an atoll.

I guess I will go for the B&G, with a dedicated B&G chart plotter with WLAN in the salon I can use the tablet as second display at the helm then. There are interfaces between B&G and Raymarine, so I can use the other sensors on both worlds, also the Navionics Maps should probably work on both. I would not totaly replace the Raymarine display, because of the Raymarine radar and the other integrated stuff.