Friday, August 19, 2016

The secret life of hulls and transducers


It's a great transducer. It was carefully and properly installed. The only problem is it doesn't work if the boat is moving faster than 10kts. You can't put this style transducer anywhere on this hull where it will work at speed. This is a far more common problem than you would believe and the problem is caused by the hull design,  not the transducer.

The owner of this boat is experienced and has expectations about transducer performance. Another owner of the identical boat is new to boating and just assumed transducers don't work if the boat is moving. Hull design, construction, and rigging all contribute positively or negatively to transducer performance. In my world a transducer should be able to hold bottom and mark fish targets at most boat's normal cruising speeds. For reasons we are going to learn about this is often not the case.