Electronics gurus: In-hull transducer?

[BOAT]

I all just depends on how much you really want out of your sounder - if all your doing to looking for the bottom of the sea just about any method will work - even the top of the ballast tank will work as long as the tank is full of water for depth sounding.

If your trying to do IMAGING (like I do) then you need to give the transducer a water to water contact with the least amount of anything in between, preferably: NOTHING in between, but if you must have something in between it should only be a solid part of the hull with no gaps or air in it. fiberglass is not the best but it's better than wood and not quite as good as steel for sound transmission. Wax and foam and glue are not very good at all so they will not make good imaging.

I use the imaging sounder because my wife is always hounding me to find sea creatures for her - if she does not get to see at least one whale or dolphin or seal or shark each day she gets disappointed so with the imaging I can track down the animals and sail over to them.

[sailboatmike]

Not much for us to see except mud and the occasional bit of sand, I have a through hull on my Raymarine ST50, so gives me depth only, thats reminds me I must calibrate it, last time out it was telling me I was in 3 feet or water, but I had the keel and the all the way down and it wasnt dragging in the mud

[Todd]

Do any of you have a link to a zoomed in diagram of the water ballast on a 26M? I see the easily searched google image which shows the zoomed out version bit it is hard to tell how the ballast is built under the aft berth.