FF Vs Chartplotter Vs DSI

[GCDB]

Put this in fishing, figured you'd all have fish finders...

I boat in the Middle East, dredging and channel changes are not well marked and Bouys infrequent. Whilst a depth gauge helps, you can quickly run out of water with no warning from 30 foot channel to 4 feet. I still get it wrong on routes i have done before.

Am looking for the best way to image not only using the chartplotters, but to see whats coming and beneath me. I am not sure how up to date the charts might be for an area with ever changing sea bed contours.

New to this lark, so trying to figure out the best piece of kit to buy, Chartplotter? no sonar. Fishfinder - don't really want to find fish (currently), but the want to see the bottom, Lowrance have this DSI set up and you can get "3D" options for many of the Garmin products (521s for example).

Simple advice on the differences, need for in hull transducers and what might suit would be very helpful

Cheers

 

[JB]

Re: FF Vs Chartplotter Vs DSI

Moved to electronics, which is what they are.

Good luck.

 

[ssobol]

Re: FF Vs Chartplotter Vs DSI

Put this in fishing, figured you'd all have fish finders...

I boat in the Middle East, dredging and channel changes are not well marked and Bouys infrequent. Whilst a depth gauge helps, you can quickly run out of water with no warning from 30 foot channel to 4 feet. I still get it wrong on routes i have done before.

Am looking for the best way to image not only using the chartplotters, but to see whats coming and beneath me. I am not sure how up to date the charts might be for an area with ever changing sea bed contours.

New to this lark, so trying to figure out the best piece of kit to buy, Chartplotter? no sonar. Fishfinder - don't really want to find fish (currently), but the want to see the bottom, Lowrance have this DSI set up and you can get "3D" options for many of the Garmin products (521s for example).

Simple advice on the differences, need for in hull transducers and what might suit would be very helpful

Cheers

There are some forward looking sonar units that may help in this situation. These units tend to have larger transducers and may not work well on smaller boats.

The 3D view representation of the Garmin units is based on the map data, not on the sonar image. Other units that have 3D sonar or structure mode help to represent underwater 3D objects as you pass over them, they do not look ahead.

 

[rolmops]

Re: FF Vs Chartplotter Vs DSI

Problems with moving sand?
It sounds like you need 2 tilted through hull transducers and 2 depth/fish finders one of which (the stern one) is hooked to a gps and a computing device that saves all the incoming info, while the front one tilted forward scans for trouble up ahead. That way you will get early warning. You still should not go over 2 knots.
Check out Airmar for transducers.