Transducer mounting location - stepped hull

[mattyd]

I went out and bought a new RayMarine Dragonfly 7 Pro Sonar/GPS unit today at the Whitworths sale (15% everything) as I felt the replacement of our original Navman 4430 sounder was long overdue. She's 11 years old and finally gave out on us today.

I wanted to get a few opinions on where to mount the transducer. The stepped hull of our 2006 Freedom Escape is making it difficult to decide where to mount it so it's still in contact with water while planing.

The old Navman holes you will see in the attached photos were very low and to the centre, and as a result we were continually bashing the poor thing frequently when the rear of the boat came in contact with sand, rock or boat ramps. We must have gone through about 10 ceramic paddle wheels before they stopped making them on the old girl!

Any advice appreciated (**through-hull mounting is not an option).

Cheers,

Matt

Refer pics:

20170526_165635.jpg20170526_165621.jpg

[scottar]

If you want it to have any sort of chance to work at any sort of speed - you are stuck with putting it back where the Navman's was unless you want to look at custom brackets (with no guarantee of success at speed). Did the Navman work okay in between bashings.

[mattyd]

Hey Scott I think you're right about having little choice but to use the same location as the previous tranny. It was ok for trolling speeds but much over 10-15 knots and it would lose the reading.

Whitworths showed me an adjustable mounting bracket that slides up and down. That may give some peace of mind if we're pulling up at a beach and wanted to save the tranny hitting sand or small rocks.

I now wish the transom had a more generic V hull rather than the cut outs at either side. But sometimes you just have to love the one you're with

Sent from my SM-T810 using Ausfish mobile app

[mattyd]

I ended up buying the adjustable transducer bracket that slides up and down with a thumbscrew to tighten. It will be a 2 second job to lift up the tranny each time we beach the boat (or launch/retrieve for that matter). The transducer leg of the RayMarine is substantially longer than our previous Navman, so it's just asking for trouble each time we pull up on the sand.

I'm installing it today. Will post some pics once it's finished.