Forward scan sonar questions?

[Jim.b.mack]

Hi all

In the near future I am going to buy a B&G Vulcan MFD Wireless wind pack and Forward scan.

How close to the boat do you get a depth reading?

Can I dispense with the look down depth sounder??

I have a paddle wheel speed and look down they are coming out. They each have their own thru hull.

Thinking the forward looking sounder and the Vulcan chart plotter will be all I need.

Also anyone in the know will a Simrad forward looking sonar work with B&G chart plotter. I believe it will but would like confirmation.

Cheers Jim

[DavidN]

Hi

I get about 20 meters ahead in 2m to 3m meters of water which is when i most use it to navigate slowly through places with rocks. I think they say you get 8x the depth due to the sonar beam angle which is roughly about correct and obviously its more useful in shallower water so really only about 20 meters.

Its not a very good look down sensor if i was honest. Keep your current one as the forward depth is showing for example in 3 meters of water the minimum depth so it could be showing zero but in reality you are in 3 meters where the boat is. Also i have found its more sensitive to weeds and other objects in the water so fluctuates a lot more than the depth sounder. If its all you had you could use it and i have before when my depth sounder stopped working but if you already have a depth sounder... keep it.

I don't think the Vulcan can use the forward scan out the box, only the Zeus 3 can. With the Vulcan you need to buy a sonar box where as the Zeus 3 it works directly with Forward Scan. This may have changed but was the case 18 months ago when I bought mine.

To be honest whilst it's been nice to have the number of times it shows a warning and saying less than 1 meter ahead due to weed or something else in the water i haven't found it that useful. If going into somewhere shallow then yes it works but the number of false positives it gives makes it a bit annoying but i suppose it's being cautious and is still picking up everything in front of you thats a solid. I was in 500 meters of water a couple of days ago and it was blaring out an alarm saying 0.2 meters depth ahead. I just probably went through a load of sea weed so the alarm has been turned off.

Not sure about simrad/b&g compatibility.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

David

[clownfishsydney]

Agree with above. The forward sonar was great when going in shallow waters, enabled me to easily figure out well before it got too shallow for us. At speed in open ocean, no good at all at picking up things like containers etc that some people think it can find.

Overall, very useful as long as you know how it works.

As to down depth, okay as mine I could turn to look straight down, but I would say keep existing normal depth sounder.

[C420sailor]

Absolutely keep. Current depth is very useful in instances where you aren’t moving forward—like swinging at anchor, etc.

[Flatswing]

Best to keep down scan too especially if it is not linked to your MFD for redundancy. My Simrad forward scan is often unreliable-good at low speed when it works, but my 15 y.o. Stand alone Ray depth is more reliable. Separate power circuits, more peace of mind when things get really shallow, often get erroneous readings. The Scan angle setting is really critical on the Simrad depending on your particular vessel & installation

[smac999]

I would not have fwd only. Get depth from real depth sounder.