Hatteras hull ?

[Paul Gwiz]

Here's my Dumb question , are these hulls solid fiberglass or do they have a core ? I am concidering an in hull transducer, do any of you have an in hull transducer ? my dead rise is 20*

 

[Hat52MY]

Not sure about the newer hulls but my 94' has a solid fiberglass hull below the waterline. Not sure an "in hull" transducer will penetrate 1"+ of solid fiberglass. All of my transducers are through hulls.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Very few Hatteras models had cored bottoms. (I think only the later 41 convertibles and not all of those) Some cored hull sides.

 

[GJH]

One of my transducers is a cheap Airmar P79 and it shoots through the hull fine; good for depth and contour but not a fish finder per se. Solid bottom like all Hatts I have heard of til now.

 

[lumina]

Hi all,

My 1974 48' YF is solid from the rub rail down to the keel. The only coring is in the decks, helm roof, etc.

Our transducers are thru hull. Agree with hat52my regarding possible accuracy issues shooting thru the glass, which I have found to exceed 1 inch (have seen 1 1/4 to 2 inches) but this is supposition on my part given i have no direct experience with a unit that shoots thru the hull.

 

[Boatnut]

The idea of a shoot through transducer is a wonderful thing, however, depth sounders and fish finders are basically sonar. There just aren't any free lunches left, you will not get the same quality signal with a shoot through as you will with a through hull. It really doesn't matter what the hull is made of there will be a degradation of signal strength with a shoot through.

 

[rsmith]

For soundings under 30' should be ok but your not going to do any wreck finding or bottom contours

 

[Boatnut]

Has anyone played around with the forward looking stuff, it was out a few years back, haven't seen much on it recently. Did it go bottoms up?

 

[Bill Herrin]

No doubt you 'll lose sensitivity by not putting the transducer thru the hull but with a higher powered sounder with a good receiver you can get surprisingly good results. The loss isn't in the hull (solid fiberglass carries sound energy as well as water does), it's in the transitions of media, with thru the hull you only have one, from the ducer to the water. We used to do inside mounts with a box full of mineral oil (with a removeable top made to be level) so the signal went from the transducer to the oil, then the oil to the hull and finally from the hull to the ocean. Some folks just put the transducer directly to the hull with silicon but that means not leveling for a straight down shot and the sonic connection to the hull would fail over time leaving a system with virtually no signal. The advantages of inside mount are no outside fairing block, less turbulence interference underway and easier changing of transducer.

 

[Boatnut]

No doubt the inside mounted transducer has it's advantages, for pleasure cruising where depth is your only concern it probably is fine. For a fish finder and bottom recorder, where resolution is an important factor the through hull is best. I do not agree that fiberglass transmits the signal as well as water. I just went through this with a friend of mine who tried the shoot through transducer with his fish finder. It took me several trips with him whining (with me supplying the cheese) about the lousy piece of equipment, before I convinced him to put in the through hull, he finally agreed and the results were mind boggling.

 

[GJH]

You have to step up to the Airmar 260 to get really good fish finding performance from a shoot through. I have been on a boat so-equipped, hooked to higher end Furuno and it was pretty cool. My cheap P79 connected to a Furuno Black Box fish finder does pretty well for depth and contour to about 200 feet. I have seen turtles and porpoises go under while at anchor or idle speed, but as noted not a fishing device at all. Truth be told, I am only interested in depths over 25 feet when using depth to double check position on the chart. I very rarely use anything but the numerical reading from one of the data boxes on the plotter/radar.

 

[Nonchalant1]

Has anyone played around with the forward looking stuff, it was out a few years back, haven't seen much on it recently. Did it go bottoms up?

Yes - I installed the Echopilot forward looking sonar in my 53MY. It does work and you can see ahead like you see the bottom. There is a limit to the angle of reflectivity so you can only see forward about 8X the water depth. That's great in 50 ft of water, but if you're in 6 ft of water you can only see 48 ft and it is mounted 25 ft behind the bow, so 23 ft in front of the bow. However, it does actually work.

 

[Paul Gwiz]

Great input, It seems to me it will be worth the extra effort to pull the boat and replace the thru-hulls already there, the 1979 technology just wont marry up with all this Garmin G Q wiz stuff. I did go middle of the road with the sounder , I popped for the GDS 24 . I considered the GDS 26 but the difference in the money was 1200.00 & I just didn't see the value as to the way we are going to use the boat.
Looks like the 1kw , 50/200 airman bronze thru hull 8 pin wins out . the thru hull & the in hull are close in the money. I found the best inner net price for 939.00 -
the yard is going to pull the boat & clean the bottom before we head to florida.
I was at West Marine & the kidd really dogged out the garmin System I bought , of course he did not know I already had the 7212 w/ ais600 , Gds 24 xm weather 18hd radar vhf 200 . Oh & I have the Garmin 740s as a back up , then as a real plotter I have the charts & a compass that dose exactly the same thing. provided I know how to use them correctly.
He looked lost when I told him I had the Garmin & would like to return it, and get the stuff he talked so highly of......Ray Marine , great stuff no doubt, I was going for user friendly & Garmin won out in that category . He couldn't explain the return policy ????? Who knew ??? Funny stuff with all this boating........
Thanks for your input, Transducer question resolved. Next ?

 

[PeterK]

Glad to hear folks are happy with their Garmin equipment. Just had our OE electronics upgraded and went with Garmin for the ease of use. I also understand Garmin bought Interphase a while back and am looking forward to them making forward looking sonar their niche to differentiate from the other majors. We put in a 6212 down, 6208 up (I guess I'm different in being more comfortable with buttons than touch screen), 200 radio with a wired handset for the flybridge, AIS transceiver, GSD 22 with the middle range through hull transducer. As I rigged the plotters up for the trip from Stuart to Beaufort, I put an Airmar 79 in. It did work fine for the trip but I am much happier with the through hull. I left the Airmar in place as an emergency back up.

Saving up for the Garmin autopilot now ... could use a working Robertson AP 2000 control head in the interim...

 

[OBXTucker]

I installed the M260 and hooked it to a Garmin 6000 series.
Mounted it in the hull with 4200 and it worked very well as a depth sounder and fish finder. The hull was about 1 1/2" thick. You need to make sure it's mounted off to the port or starboard about 2+ feet to avoid the keel (don't ask me how I know this!!).

http://www.airmartechnology.com/2009/products/marine-product.asp?prodid=53&manf=All