after looking at the hatteras in the mud on a different thread and again feeling my ulcer cooking just by looking at something that was my biggest fear while using the ditch ,i have a question.......why don't they put a transducer for a second sounder in the bow of the boat that can be used when in skinny water???
That is done, and there are forward looking units that do a decent job especially in the ditch BUT, (and it's a big one!) it takes someone paying close attention to those readouts to make a difference. Watching the plotter, nearby traffic, and the banks ahead usually relegates the sounder to last place on the attention list, till it's too late. I was riding down the ditch a month ago, chatting on the aft deck and I just happened to look ahead and recognised we were getting a little out of the channel. I ran to the bridge, where the owner/captain was diligently watching his plotter, but hadn't noticed the forward looking sounder right in front of him showing an ominously rising bottom line. Fortunately, we just churned mud. Maybe an alarm would help but most of them get turned off in short order and in the ditch, the bottom can come up so fast, you couldn't avoid touching anyway. That's why I always prefer open water!
They do. I have just installed the Interphase 200C which is a forward looking sounder that sweeps a 180* arc in horizontal mode as well. Range set is to 1200'. It worked very nicely on sea trials the other day.
did not mean anything fancy....played w/ something years ago like that but you needed to figure the angle of the dangle, ect...just asking why builders don't put a place way up forward where a transducer could be placed for a $200 machine...when i was in a tight spot ,i did not need bells and whistles , i just wanted to know how much water as under the bow , as i felt my way thru...
Because by the time you've come to a stop on a 70' Hatteras MY, you've gone a 1/4 mile. I've found that the foward looking sonars are close to useless. I've run about 1/2 a dozen boats with them and at cruise they either didn't read, or got errant readings, and you had to be staring at it to have it pick up anything. It IS good at slower speeds if you are going into uncharted bays or unfamiliar areas at hull speed.......
if i had to be in a spot where it has been historically bad, my hull speed was .00067 knots.......i always believed i would be better off knowing the depth of the water under my bow as opposed to the depth under my gearboxes...
Those extra 20' or even 50' won't do you any good unless you're doing ".00067 knots". This is why I always try to run unfamiliar waters during daylight when you can read the water, not to mention see floating tree stumps, logs and crabtraps, etc. Plus, the distance you'll do at night will be eclipsed in moments the next day at 20 kts. There's just no good reason to run the ICW at night unless you're pushing a barge.
AGAIN....i'm not talking about ''running''...i'm asking WHY builders do not put provisions for a transducer as far forward as possible....the reasons are previously stated...
Because most of the time, a transducer mounted that far forward won't be reading worth a crap in aerated water. If you want a transducer there, go ahead and put one there. If you want to know what's in front so you can avoid having to crawl and guess your way through, get a forward looking unit, there are several on the market and start at a few hundred dollars.
my experience with the entry level forward looking sounder (interphase probe and scout) has been dispointing in shallow water, where you need them to work. they can only see a limit distance forward, 6 to 8 times the depth. so when you're in the ditch in 9' that's barely beyond the bow. Better than nothing but don't listen to the hype about 100s of feet of fwd visibility. Henning is right about how a transducer mounted forward would not work well because of air although when fully settled in water, which is how you should be if unsure of the depth, then it could help. if the guy at the helm is paying attention. i'm always amazed at how many folks get in trouble in the ditch because they are focused on the plotter... it's incredible. You always read story of people running aground saying "but i was on the magenta line" while the line at that spot is on the edge of the marked channel, or on the wrong side of the marker (Cumberland Divide GA) when i run the ditch, typically with a 6 to 6 1/4 draft, i rarely get on plane unless i'm in a stretch which i know is deep and where there are no chances / history of shoaling . whenever the sounder gets to 9' (which is how i have the alarm set), I get down to low (550rpm idle). by 8' i'm in neutral and will crawl forward bumping one engine in and out of gear. with a little experience, you can get a feel for how things are going. often, shoaling takes place at intersections with inlets or rivers. in doubt, stick to the middle. being in the channel is not enough when running the ICW, in most places. you want to be near the center. when i see the bottom coming up, i typically try to find the deeper water by changing course 20 dergrees or so and look at the sounder. if it gets better then fine, I favor that side, if not i try the other side. but again it's all slow and only in a few known spots. maybe 20 or 30 of them alltogether between Miami and Norfolk, so it's not that much time consuming. and in doubt, it first try the side that's up wind (or up current if crossing near an inlet) so that if i get to a point where it's really shallow and need to back out, the wind will not push me to the edge but back toward the center... last year I looked at the chart for Calibogue sound (where the hatt got high and dry), having run outside from Fernandina and didn't like what i saw. i bypassed it and went in at Port Royal. I wonder how close to the edge of the channel that sandbar is... doens't seem to be in the middle, is it? as to running it at night, I've done it and to me it's not more difficult. frankly, the water is so murky that you cant' read it anyway so day or night makes little difference. preserve your night vision, and with a good spotlight, radar and two independent plotters it's pretty easy. reminds me of flying an instrument approach to minimums, excpet that you're running 8 kts instead of 80kts or more!
If that's the shoal I'm thinking of it's just east of where you cross from the south channel to the north. It's also a good idea to monitor the latest ICW conditions as reported on http://skipperbob.home.att.net and Cruisersnet.net (Not sure if OK to post these links so fell free to delete if not OK admin)
