Forward Scan Sonar

We install and test a B&G forward scan sonar with Zeus 3 chartplotter. More info at:
www.bandg.com/...

[@Robert-cg2bj]

One of the very best sailboat channels on KZbin. I can't believe that you don't have tens of thousands of subscribers as your attention to detail and very precise presentation stands head and shoulders above the rest. Thanks for sharing your skills and experience with us!

[@atomvoyager]

Thanks. As I get older I find it more important to share my experiences and what I've learned with those starting out so whatever hard-earned knowledge I have isn't lost. For anyone who owns one of these older boats or is planning to get one you may want to join us on the Plastic Classic Forum to ask or answer questions, or just read through the thousands of informative posts archived there. It's at: plasticclassicforum.com/forum/

[@williamhoskins7818]

@@atomvoyager James, your so right about sharing our hard earned lessons, we've got to try and keep these trades alive . Your a good man caring about the newer folks . Not a Hollywood movie but if you want to learn, James videos will get . Steady winds brother..

[@fissh29]

Great explanation for those that have little experience with electronics. Then again I find useful info in all your videos, thank you so much...my mind is on epoxy with the weather warming, you got me on the water...favorable winds

[@atomvoyager]

Thanks. I see on your channel you have a big refit going on with Oria. If you're not already there you may want to join us on the Plastic Classic Forum to ask or answer questions, or post updates on your refit. It's at: plasticclassicforum.com/forum/

[@marcelop9377]

Great video, thanks for posting as I never understood how these work in real life. One drawback/vulnerability I saw on your shot after installation is that the transducer protrudes past the metal tube, I guess that is needed to "see" ahead. If that catches a rope or fishing net it would probably destroy the unit. But nothing to do with your work, which is always neat.

[@vanilla50]

Thanks for this post! Friend and I have been considering giving this a go and this answered all our concerns.

[@carryonsailing]

Thanks for showing this, in shallow draft areas it is near pointless for me. Thanks

[@dontraeger4325]

Any chance that you would consider a "2 years later" observation of this device with lessons learned, how to use, pro / cons kind of video?

[@atomvoyager]

I don't know if I'll be able to do an update like that but can say it has a narrow range of usefulness due to the poor range. It only works somewhat if you are going very slow in deep water looking for an abrupt shoal spot. And even then you need your eyes glued to the screen. I'm not adding one to my own boat until the range they can operate is a least doubled and if they work better in shallow waters.

[@ppm6296]

This seems to be of very limited usefulness, no? When you need it (shallow water) it is at its least precise for predicting depth? I am thinking about whether it would be worth the investment say for reefs in the Bahamas, and since it only appears to give you a graph of what is directly ahead of you, it wouldn't really help too much in trying to navigate a cut, would it? Is there no setting which would give you a more wide spread view of the under water terrain?

[@atomvoyager]

It is of limited usefulness in shallow waters or when sailing fast and I'm not rushing out to add one to my own boat or even recommending it for others. Not recommending against it either since it does seem useful in certain situations such as picking out a dicey but deep channel when able to go dead slow and spin the boat on different courses to get a view ahead and to the sides. I don't know enough about it yet to know the width of the view but the way I increased the view angle was to turn the boat off course and compare the view ahead on different courses.

[@mikefreauf6192]

Great video. One question...lets say you are sailing and something floating in the water comes ahead, like a sea container or something...would the forward scan sonar pick that up?

[@atomvoyager]

My guess is that it would not reliably pick up things such as a semi-submerged container. And even if it did there is a small chance you'd be going slow enough and attentive enough to the display to avoid it. Best to add some collision bulkhead forward for that concern.

[@mikefreauf6192]

@@atomvoyager cheers

[@brettkramer]

I was going to ask the same thing. That would be the one thing I would want an expensive piece of gear like this to do is to give me an advance audible collision warning of a partially submerged object, allowing me some time to avoid it. Great video btw, many thanks !

[@markberger5739]

that lump of a tranducer looks like its begging to get knocked off with any underwater collision - sunk boat!

[@jayknight850]

Thanks for the review, does the turbidity of the water seem to affect the forward ranging? ps, I have enjoyed your books!

[@atomvoyager]

Thanks. I don't think it has any effect because the waters we were in had a lot of sediment and we still got close to the 4-1 forward scan ratio we expected.

[@nonimus2030]

Do you know anyone using the Zeus 3 to monitor engine parameters? I need to be able to see oil temp and pressure as well as coolant temperature in addition to the usual sailing instruments.

[@atomvoyager]

We didn't set up engine parameters but you could download the B&G manual and then phone their tech support for more info.

[@nonimus2030]

@@atomvoyager thanks. I talked to a guy at Pacific Yacht Systems and he said it's doable but a bit of a hassle. I think I'll just stick with analogue engine gauges as B&G doesn't seem good enough to warrant cutting holes in my boat 😑

[@navegandomivandestadt34]

Thanks for sharing it!

[@abdabzeebop2]

Why is the shallower water on the chart darker blue than the deep water? Isn't that a bit counterintuitive?

[@Serhiy34]

Dark shades are more visible to the human eye and attract attention against a light background.

[@larry9210]

Great video thanks. I wish B&G would do some videos like this. Have you used or have you seen videos on, how to use the race function on the Zeus. How to set up a simple Windward Leeward race course with start line etc.? Thanks a lot, again great video.

[@atomvoyager]

I'm not a racer or even very tech savvy so have not used the race functions. I find the B&G user interface too complicated as it is. Maybe you can find a local racer with B&G on his boat who can demonstrate it for you.

[@larry9210]

@@atomvoyager thank you very much for the reply. I am trying to find a racer but so far no one knows anyone who has been able to use it. Maybe high end racers who use the H5000 product. It is so frustrating to have this device with no help from B&G. Even those at West Marine who are trained don’t know. And B&G tech support haven’t been able to help. There is no escalation or anyone to call. You would thing someone at B&G would see these post and try to help. Sorry for the rant.

[@raymiller315]

@@larry9210 Totally agree - there's the little infographic videos and not much more. I do race though and have been thinking of videoing what I've got setup - what sort of race functions would you like me to try and figure out? I don't do w/l racing, more around various islands near our club, but startlines I can definitely show you.

[@larry9210]

@@raymiller315 Hi Ray, thanks for the offer! This should help others as well. What would be helpful to see is a most simple setup of an Upwind/Downwind course using that function of Zeus on the Race Panel. The scenario would be that you would set a startline, port and starboard, using cursor locations in an area where you typically sail and where the wind direction is typically the same. Here I would set my starline and then go into the Windward/Leeward course setup function. I would set my windward mark, mark1, one or two miles perpendicular to the startline, directly up wind. Then set my leeward mark, mark2, straight downwind from mark1 maybe a half mile below the startline (or really anyware directly downwind from mark1). I believe this is all that is needed to set up a basic course. There are two views of the start line, can't remember what they are, but by now when viewing them do you see the laylines? Now when you start the timer you would see the "burn-down" line approaching the startline as the timer counts down to zero. The race start-line would be shown on the "Chart panel". Select the Start Line menu option to show the Start Line display in the Race panel. The Start Line display shows the configured start line in scale with your boat, allowing you to clearly see distance to line and position relative to the laylines. All start settings are also shown on this display. Settings Boat lengths Select the Use boat lengths setting to show the distance behind the line and Bias advantage in boat length data measurements on the Start line panel. Showing the measurements in boat lengths can give a clearer indication of the distance from your boat to the start line. Show layline grids Select Grid to show layline grids in the start line diagram. The grid is a background that is aligned with the laylines. They can give a clearer indication of possible runs to the start line.

[@raymiller315]

@@larry9210 Ok, that's quite a list! But yeh, I can try and get that done - will probably not be for a week or two as it's coming into winter here in Sydney, so I'm not sailing as often, but will try and get all that done for you. The start line stuff is dead easy - I use that all the time, might need to do some research to find some of the other settings as I would've set them some time ago.

[@BUCKSK1]

doesn't seem feasible for a skiff I plan to land on the beach frequently :(

[@circe42]

Not at all useful for your application the transducer sticks down about 1-1/2 - 2" and is $$$$$ when you snap it off some say it only sees 4x the water depth A tech told me 8 times and you need to go slow if you have to stop

[@circe42]

Is the hub a required item if you are only using forward scan sonar ? New install. Normal Depth sounder on a different system .

[@atomvoyager]

There are some types of depth sounders that plug in directly to a stand alone display or to a port on the back of a chart plotter. Others go through a NMEA 2000 backbone or some type of sonar hub. Best to look around what's on the market and select one based on your needs. For simple stand alone units there is the Raymarine i40 at: www.westmarine.com/buy/raymarine--i40-depth-instrument-with-thru-hull-transducer--14155865?recordNum=2 It can also communicate to a Raymarine plotter through a Seatalk cable but works good by itself. If using Garmin or B&G ask the distributor for details or ask on a sailing forum.

[@circe42]

@@atomvoyager thank you for your input I am using the B&G Zeus along with the 20+ radar. It will plug directly into the plotter but I saw that you used a hub in series with the transmitter and plotter and was just wondering if it was required. Keep up the great videos. And thanks again

[@atomvoyager]

​@@circe42 I'm not expert on this and the owner just dropped off all the B&G boxes for me to install without consulting with me first. The salesman sold him $15K worth of B&G and supposedly the hub was needed because there were two different types of depth transducers going to the same plotter. It was not easy to get all these components set up because the options are not clear and even B&G tech support gave me two different options on how to connect and only one of them ended up working after some trial and error and back and forth with the salesman and tech support.

[@circe42]

@@atomvoyager thank you for your input. I am only running the forward sonar attached to the Zeus. I have a isolated Raymarine depth sounder in addition not sure if I want to interconnect with the B&G Zeus. However I appreciate your input.

[@ralph9987]

thanks for all the install tips. can a second transducer be connected to the hub?

[@atomvoyager]

We had a second transducer going to the same plotter but I don't recall if it was hooked thru the hub or to a separate plug on the plotter. It was troublesome to sort out as I recall because we had a lot of other gadgets running to the plotter (radar, wind, AIS, etc) and different depth transducer options can be connected in different ways. I needed to make a couple calls to the B&G tech support.

[@ralph9987]

@@atomvoyager thanks. B&G support good?

[@atomvoyager]

@@ralph9987 They answered my questions at least. But the user interface of the Zeus is more complicated than a Garmin, I guess because it has more functions available.

[@khalidismail7921]

I was on one trip from Gulf of Thailand to Singapore, we were passing one island about midnight, Radar was on and lookout on the bridge wing suddenly the whole ship shook, I turned on all the lights on Deck, we found 3 bamboo sticks visible, cleared them and resumed passage, CH/ENG reported vibration astern, I e mailed my superior and told him what happened, in the morning I stopped the vessel & put the Engine astern suddenly 7 other bamboo sticks floated, to me it looked they were stuck on the Rudder Stock, later I learned that this is a Fish Trap, Bamboo sticks tied up together and held by anchor in the middle, would the Sonar pick that up

[@atomvoyager]

It would probably not pick that up at least in any useful way. I think it is limited mostly to approaching shoal water from deep water and only when going slow with eyes glued to the plotter. That means it's best used short-term when you are entering some tricky area and is not practical to try to monitor it for hours on end looking for small targets while going at speed.

[@danjhonthunder5223]

Hi guys do you have any sonar recommendation for fish finding?

[@azoresmarine]

Obrigado

[@ammoalamo6485]

This B&G unit seems to be useless when compared to the Echo Pilot 2D reviewed in another vid by channel Sailing Aquarius Around The World. I don't know price differences or features either but suggest prospective users apply due diligence before buying any FLR.

[@atomvoyager]

It may be that the Echo Pilot forward scan is better than the B&G but I did not see any evidence of that in the Aquarius video other than some might prefer its stand alone display for boats that have space for that. Unless I misunderstood, he stated that in 30m of water he saw 80m ahead. That's a ratio of about 3-1. The B&G is the same at between 3-1 to 4-1 in best case scenario. His video was a slick production and he gushed about its virtues but he didn't emphasize the technical details or limitations for shallow water use. All forward scans work best in the deep water situation he was sailing in. My video shows use in coastal waters of the US east coast. The point is that both units work best in deep water coming up to abrupt shoals and least useful in shallow waters of say under 50' or so depending on boat speed.

[@sailingaroundtheworld1427]

why is it so slow ?

[@davethemmp3763]

Checkout Ecopilot sonar. 2D and 3D sonar much more accurate.

[@Serhiy34]

The Ecopilots display updates every one second, it's very slow. All Ecopilots interfaces - is one HDMI. But the picture on the screen is prettier, it's true.