Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in Boat Accessories, Boating | 0 comments

You are out enjoying the day on the lake in your boat with your family or friends just putting along near shore when all of a sudden it feels like your boat hit a pothole and your engine and or lower unit has vibration problems. What happened? Your drive systems lower unit and propeller ran aground and your boat prop blades are now damaged and don’t work right anymore. This is how most boat propellers get damaged. It can be avoided if you have a depth finder system on your boat.

Depth finders are a great way to know how close the bottom of the lake is to the bottom of your boat. And they have sounding alarms you can set at a certain depth that warn you how close you are to hitting bottom. They are a simple sonar that uses an electronic sending and recieving signal device called a transducer that is mounted either on the stern of the boat as low as posible or inside the boat in the bilge erea known as a through hull transducer. Electronic signal pulses are shot down and bounce off solid objects and then are returned to the transducer. The time it takes for the signal to return is then turned into a calculation in feet or yards of what the distance is between the solid object and the transducer. That distance information can then be shown on a display mounted on or in your dashboard. You do not have to be going slow for depth finders to work. They also work at all speeds of your boat but if you are going fast and all of a sudden the depth alarm goes off it might be too late to avoid hitting something. You can set the alarm to sound at a greater distance that can give you more time to react but if you are not sure about the erea of water you are in slow down so if the alarm does go off you have time to stop or steer clear of danger.

 If you do not have a depth finder but want to get one installed on your boat you should have a professional install it for you. It is not really a do it yourself project. The positioning of the transducer is most important so it can accurately send and recieve signals. 

 For super discount prices on boat propellers please visit our boat propellers website or call for pricing at 1-800-573-5533