Forward Looking Sonar

10m (30')? I've only seen one and it was pretty useless in the circumstances (5'-15'depth). Don't even remember the mfg.

sonar for small boats

good day,we used a simrad 360' sonar unit on a 40m fishing boat i used to work on.it wasnt very good at bottom definition but very good at finding fish up in the water .the unit was VERY big and bulky,maybe something smaller would be suitable but sonars are usually just used on much bigger boats.
we had great use from a nobel tech chart plotter system that was tied into the 2 differant frequency fish finders we were already using.it up dated the chart as we steamed over the areas we worked so the chart got more and more accurate.
did you mean 100meter boat?thats more your size project.
simrad was very helpfull and sent techs with us when we got the new sonar system aboard.
good luck.
cw

Sonar

Interphase has a decent unit. It will see 5X the depth of boat fwd. All it was designed to do. BB version as well as 1 with it's own screen.
Hope this helps

If he is only trying to avoid runnnig into a reef or ledge he should just install one of those $199 Humminbird fish finder things and glue the transducer to shoot forward and down from just in front of the keel.

Any unit that would provide him with scan and tilt features would cost more than the boat and he would spend more time looking at it and tweaking it than looking where he's going.

I have an interphase that came on my boat, indeed it can only see fwd 5 or 6 times the depth. so in shallow waters where you need it the most, you cant' even see what's under the bow.

Echo Pilot are supposed to be good, in any case you'd want' to mount the xducer as far forward as possible. since it's really for shallow water, where you shoudl be going slow anyway, even on a power boat air bubles aren't a problem at those speeds since the hull is fully settled

I understand learning to read and understand what these units are saying is a problem. What has been your experience?

K1W1 Take a look at the Lowrance HDS series with a LSS module it has a lot of extra features. with 50, 200, & 800 kHz frequency's and the power to look out farther than most, it gives the best bang for the buck $1,500 + -

i've owned or used a few interphase, it's pretty straight forward and there isn't much to understand. the display is easy and clear, the issue is the limitation of the technology they are using and that it's limited to 5 or 6 times the waterdepths.

In this Echopilot 2D Platinum will work for my tug.

I'm looking for a lot of information before buying and it's hard to find other than opinions.

Here is a small video that sees what and how it looks forward. If you want more information, I may be able to help.



NBs

Garmin Panoptix would be something else to consider.

It s good real world video, thanks for posting.

That said, while it shows good performance in fairly deep water (over 5 meters) i wonder how good the readings are when running in 3 to 4 meters and the bottom comes up to the 2 meter range

This scenario is mor typical of the runnign conditions we have on the US east coast and bahamas

Hi,

Here is my calculation of how the probe sector grows as the distance increases.

Forward distanse from the sensor (angle 15°) and sector Width
5m / 1,3m
10m /2,6m
15m / 4m
20m / 5,2m
30m / 8m
40m / 11m
50m / 13m
100m / 26m
150m / 39m
200m / 52m


Examples. Forward the distance to 100 meters of the beam width there 26 meters.

In addition, sonair works and looks effective 1: 5-6 in depth: distance. For example, a 5 meter depth probe can look about 30 meter ahead in real time, which is 8 meter wide from the sea bottom to the surface.

In practice it is good that the sector is quite narrow, because it is easier to find a route between stones. If the beam is much wider it would give improper information about the route next to it.

Second video how Echopilot works ... depth and distance in meters under the keel and sonar sensor, echopilot in automatic mode, ie change distance when depth changes. Future depth on right side, future depth approximately points in the center of altitude and closer to the boat. Yellow line is a history of reality ...At the beginning of the video "disorder" a possible fish flock.



Here is now the winter and my boat is in stock, I can describe in spring 4 months to get new video material with a depth of 2-3-4 meters to you.

Generally, in shallow water unknown can not drive fast. For example, 7kn is 3.4 meters per second and if you see 20 meters ahead it's time to react for about 5.5 seconds it's not much so you have to drive slower.


NBs

Worried about coral reefs in the Red Sea? By the time he sees them on his sonar, it will be too late. Best to study well the charts and to cruise the area well with a local skipper. It should not be a problem. I have been cruising the Red Sea for decades with no issues at all. If your colleague will sail in our Red Sea region, I can certainly help him and also give him one of our local boys to show him the area.

Just noticed that the original post is from 2010 . I guess the sailor knows the Red Sea by heart by now.

See Far Sounder from the UK. Very expensive system made for ships. But, I understand they are getting ready to release a smaller system for the yacht market. The big systems do not carry the same limitations as Echopilot etc.

I hope I'm not violating any Forum Rules, but here is an article I wrote on the subject a couple of years ago.
http://www.******************/design/getting-to-the-bottom-of-it-side-scan-sonar

I'm sure it would be a great article except the site is censored here. If you can insert an x or two in the address which we can then remove or otherwise give us a clue.

You can Google "Side Scan Sonar and Bracewell"
The first hit is an article called "Getting to the Bottom of It"