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Michael T

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Tietsort

Wow five feet! Is your swimplatform dragging in the water? 

Michael T

Steve, that is very interesting. MT

luckydog

Is the depth gauge measuring actual water depth or from the transducer mounted area? I'm sure this is something I need to know LOL. My lowrance 3500 depth gauges anything shallower then 3' will gust blink 3' and not show actual depth. Needless to say I stay above 3' I've not yet hit bottom yet, consider myself very lucky, so far

Michael T

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Lifes Good

Rinker Yan can we see pics of your boat with out the swim platform?

rowboat212

luckydog said:

Is the depth gauge measuring actual water depth or from the transducer mounted area? I'm sure this is something I need to know LOL. My lowrance 3500 depth gauges anything shallower then 3' will gust blink 3' and not show actual depth. Needless to say I stay above 3' I've not yet hit bottom yet, consider myself very lucky, so far

I'm willing to wager you have your shallow alarm set at 3'... The audible beep can be turned off, and I think it is by default.   Alarms are nice and all,  but I, for one, wanna know actual depth instead of setting a lower limit... Mine isset up to thirty feet mmad (i could care less more than that) and nothing for the lowest... 

RY, those diesel s are heavier, but not THAT much heavier.... What in the world? Have you ever ran a moisture indicator across your runners? I've a friend with a 50' egg harbor with about a twelve foot beam (fairly narrow critter) circa mid seventies, and with twin diesels, and it doesn't draw that much!! the thing is glass over wood incapsulated.. he draws just over four foot sitting still, but at least a foot of that is propshaft and props... I don't get the five foot draft, man... That's nuts. 

Michael T

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LaRea

Luckydog -- The depth sounder measures the distance from the transducer to the bottom. The transducer is on the underside of the hull, so it's basically measuring from the keel to the bottom.  

Most depth sounders can be calibrated to display the actual water depth.  The best thing to do is move the boat into shallow water, measure the actual depth using a pole or boat hook, and then adjust the readout to match the known depth. 

And, of course, know your boat's actual draft!

luckydog

Thank You, MT and LaRea I have some measuring to do

MarkB

LaRea said:

Luckydog -- The depth sounder measures the distance from the transducer to the bottom. The transducer is on the underside of the hull, so it's basically measuring from the keel to the bottom.  

Most depth sounders can be calibrated to display the actual water depth.  The best thing to do is move the boat into shallow water, measure the actual depth using a pole or boat hook, and then adjust the readout to match the known depth. 

And, of course, know your boat's actual draft!

Yes, that's normally the case. But as you point out you can put in a keel offset in the sonar, so you measure actual depth. So this should be checked. 

luckydog

Yeah MB, That's what I gathered from the posts by MT and  LaRea, The next time I'm at the boat I'm going to measure it. The funny thing about this thread is my wife and I were talking about this very subject just this past Thursday, I had an Idea that it measured from transducer down but wasn't sure. So I guess I have to say thank you MT for posting this thread