Depth sounder advice.

[Sauntress]

Views on the best depth sounder (not fish finder) on the market would be appreciated. The boat is wood construction, a classic yacht, so would need a transducer fitted through the hull. For years I had a Navsounder by Stowe Electronics, a UK based firm which worked fine, but eventually expired. Thank you.

[Suijin]

Is it going to be integrated with any existing electronics? Pretty much any depth sounder on the market is going to perform well in it's basic function.

It's usually the "head unit", aka MFD or instrument display that has the smarts built in that provide features like depth history in the form of a graph, alarms, etc.

[Sauntress]

There are no other electronics. This is a very basic boat. No engine, two batteries with solar panel and regulator, handheld GPS and nowt else (unless you count a Walker trailing log, sextant, paper charts and so on).

[double u]

you'll be needing a model that can be upgraded with a bronze (or stainless) through-hull transducer because of the wooden hull-no plastic!

[kentobin]

A friend of mine recently was looking for a basic depth sounder and said he couldn't find one. He ended up getting another chartplotter that had a depth function built in, a Garmin if I remember correctly.

If he's correct maybe ebay or craigslist might have a used unit that meets your requirements.

[anchorbend]

This may be what you are looking for.

Signet Marine SL172 Depth Sounder - SL 172 depthsounder SIGNETMARINE

[double u]

unsuitable xducer!

[SailRedemption]

We bought a Hummingbird stand alone unit with the hull transducer and the small circle display. It's only a depth finder only. But it was the deepest shooting gauge type sounder. Claims reliable to 600' where most others are 200..

[double u]

again: plastic transducer unsuitable for wooden hull!

[laika]

Airmar has some bronze and ss transducers. The options seem pretty limited, but they're out there!

[ozsailer]

G'day Sauntress. On our old boat we had NASA marine electronics including wind, speed and depth. Very basic but we found them very good value for money and very ver reliable. Straight forward to install and use.



Greg H
Lagoon 410.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Sauntress

Views on the best depth sounder (not fish finder) on the market would be appreciated. The boat is wood construction, a classic yacht, so would need a transducer fitted through the hull. For years I had a Navsounder by Stowe Electronics, a UK based firm which worked fine, but eventually expired. Thank you.

I am curious why you are excluding fish finders. There are a multitude of cheap, but reasonable performance fish finders made for the small boat fishermen. They are often cheaper than units that read out just depth and use little power. If you don't want a image of the bottom (although this can be useful anchoring) you can concentrate just on the depth number.

However, Double U makes an excellent point that with a wooden hull you must fit a metal transducer housing if you want a thru hull mount. The inexpensive fish finders all come with plastic transducers. These could be used as a transom mount but this does not suit many yachts, although it would be a good option if you can make it work.

With a metal housing you are looking at a reasonably specialised product. A B&G Triton display together with Airmar DT 800 with a bronze housing would be a good solution if you are keen to avoid fishfinders, but it would be expensive. The DST 800 would provide speed for very little extra cost.

There may be a cheaper option, but I cannot think of one.

[Sauntress]

Thanks to all for the replies and advice. There is now plenty to digest and very helpful too. What is the reason for objecting to a plastic transducer in a wooden hull?. Regrettably the Nasa unit I bought to replace the Stowe instrument lasted a couple of months, followed by a very unsatisfactory warranty claim, so I would be a bit wary of trying again. The reason for not wanting a fish finder has more to do with the shape of the unit than anything else, though I am not interested in fishing (my crew is, and trails lines hopefully and occasionally successfully). Depth finders tend to have a square face and round body, which is what I am after.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Sauntress

What is the reason for objecting to a plastic transducer in a wooden hull?.

Wood swells and shrinks and this poses a risk of cracking a plastic transducer, which can obviously sink the boat.

So all the manufacturers warn that a plastic transducer is not suitable as a thru the hull mount for a wooden vessel. Bronze is the best, followed by stainless steel.

[W32PAMELA]

Look at the CruzPro D110 and their THD5 long stem bronze transducer. They might meet your needs