What Really Occurs Behind Your Boat?
SternMate™: the Boater’s Source for Transducer Management
Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 7:00 am
By: SternMate
Nanticoke Maritime LLC (Dallas, TX) – Marine electronics have become vitally important for boat owners and, in one form or another, are found on most boats. Your transducer is the “heartbeat” or “nerve center” of your sonar devices and when it is not up to par nothing functions and is bound to ruin a good day on the water.
The high speed transducer, installed on the boat transom, is used by more boaters than any other type. A transducer emits electronic impulses which reflect and mark bottom contour, will locate underwater structures, fish, depth and potential underwater hazards and can do all of this while underway at speed. However, electronic impulses often are severely interrupted as a result of an invasive, widely practiced “direct-to-transom” installation, which requires that the transducer be placed directly into a hostile environment of agitated water created by a fast moving boat. In fact, it is for this reason that transducer installation and sounding concerns comprise the most frequented troubleshooting issues surrounding marine electronics.
While undertaking the development of the SternMate™ transducer mounting system, Captain Chris, owner of Nanticoke Maritime LLC, considered the necessary elements for a high speed transom-mounted transducer to sound at optimum. A fast moving planning or displacement hull moves with bow up and stern down which displaces water as shown in the artist’s rendering. When installed in the conventional “direct-to-transom” practiced manner – flush with or below the running surface – a transducer is forced to plow through the water, creating drag, turbulence, aeration and spray; any of which will seriously compromise the transducer sounding.
Captain Chris emphasizes, “Dragging your transducer, at speed, in this manner creates the problems, but that's exactly what we are always instructed to do... exactly like this, or worse. We now understand that what we have learned is all wrong.”
Upon moving your high speed transducer further aftward and upward using the SternMate™ system, unnecessary transducer drag and compromised high speed sonar sounding can be eliminated by allowing the naturally displaced water an opportunity to elevate into the face of the transducer. By doing this, the SternMate™ system employs a unique corrective advantage which causes your high speed transducer to “skim” as it should.
“We just didn’t recognize it,” Captain Chris says. “We had no idea that nature was so subtle and had provided a way for us all along to help us gain the most from our high speed transducer. It was right there whole time. After years of research and development of the correct equipment, we learned we could dramatically improve the function of our high speed sonar transducer. We too had dealt with all of the transducer problems others continue to encounter, and we did something about it.”
By simply using the proper equipment, SternMate™ has proved to be the only transducer mounting and management accessory in the world to do the job correctly. In the spirit of transducer installation without damage, boaters everywhere can now effectively harness what naturally occurs behind the boat with SternMate™.
Find out more at www.sternmate.com.
