|
I wanted to fit a cheap fishfinder, mostly as a depth finder,
but did not want to drill holes in the hull for the transducer or to
permanently mount the fishfinder (they have a habit of being stolen....ripped
from the boat) as I discovered when I lived in New Jersey
I managed to take an $80 Garmin fishfinder and fit it very
neatly to the cabin hatch trim making a simple removable mount out of a scrap
of mahogany.
 |
The sliding mount allows the sonar unit to be fitted and
removed in about five seconds, and rather than permanently wire the unit, I
added a cigarette lighter socket to the spare fuse connector and mounted it to
the wooden bulkhead. |
|
 |
The transducer was very successfully hot melt glued to the
hull just below and to the starboard below the cooler/step. I temporarily
removed the bilge hose from the rear bulkhead just behind the cooler which
allowed me to thread the transducer and place it in the bilge without having to
drill or enlarge any holes. The real innovation here is the use of hot melt
glue (quickly apply a very liberal dose of glue and press down and hold on a
cleaned and dry area of fiberglass about six inches to the right f the keel).
Hot melt glue avoids all the mess of epoxy resin and allows the transducer to
be repositioned or removed from the boat. |
For $80 and 30 minutes in the workshop to construct the wooden
mount, I now have a fully functioning sonar with depth, bottom profile, fish
detection, water temperature (or at least submerged hull temperature which
appears to be very close) as well as battery condition. It also looks
good. |
