View Single Post
Old 05-30-2010, 06:10 AM   #75
swinginFish
Senior Member
 
swinginFish's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 173
Keep it simple

I've been using a wet mount for 5+ years - primarily so that I could easily use my ff/transducer on any of the various boats I've had. Point is the cup in which one places the transducer needs to to do two things only, i.e., accommodate the size of your transducer, and contain the signal medium.

I personally prefer round puck-shape transducers, mate an appropriately-sized ABS coupling to the yak's bottom and then epoxy its fitted-edge down to the hull's inside (Have learned that slow-drying epoxy is best - less brittle & more robust bond than quick dry).

Once I'm at the beach, I pour a bit of water into the created reservoir, put the puck in (and attach the ff) and I'm off. It is suprisingly simple and effective for my purposes, with gravity doing its job of holding the puck in place for as long as I'm on the water.

I've now done this on 5 different yaks, and in 5 years the only issue has been when quick-dry epoxy let go after a yak fell hull down from my truck bed to the sand. Flex of the hull broke the seal so water leaked out from beneath the ABS reservoir (If someone's really concerned about this, then I suspect vaseline or grease would continue to work even when the reservoir seal gave way).

As for down sides, as Andy rightly noted, polyethylene's a bit slow to respond to temperature changes, so transducers w/ built in temp gauges sitting or glued inside a craft will respond accordingly.

AE
swinginFish is offline   Reply With Quote