New One Man Boat

[yoderjac]

I think I'm going to get rid of the YakAttack Switchblade. It works pretty well but there are a few issues. First, it is a bit of a pain for entry and exit of the boat. I can kind of fold it out of the way some, but not completely. At higher speeds, it has some movement. I did notice that one side of my SI is darker than the other. This could be caused by multiple issues, but one of them is that the transducer on the switchblade is not quite deep enough. It is intended for a kayak, not an inflatable.

So, I started working on a design for a transducer pole. While this pole won't need to rotate like the one I made for Megalive 2, it will need to slide vertically. I think the best place to attach it is to the oar locks. I started working on it today. I had some 1x1x1/8 square tube scraps. I plan to use them as back brackets to secure the same 1 1/4" pvc conduit I used for the outer pipe on the Megalive 2 pole. Putting the square tube inside the oarlocks and the pipe horizontally outside, I plan to simply bolt them together to hold the pipe in place. I'll then use an elbow and Tee fitting to get the Tee mounted vertically just outside the inflation chamber. I'll then use the same 1" PVC conduit I used for the inner pole of the Megalive 2 pole. My plan is to pin it so I can change the depth of the transducer and stow it by pinning it well out of the water.

I grabbed the fittings and bolts on the way home from church this morning. I got part of it done, but the bolts I got were a half inch too small. When I get back to lowes and get the right size bolts and start the first steps, I'll take a couple pictures.

If this is successful, the pole will be more stout than the switchblade and allow for greater depth while being out of my road for entry and exit.

 

[yoderjac]

I got the bolts, so here is a picture of the first step:

Here is a picture with the elbow and Tee:

It is not cemented in place yet, but it give you an idea of what it will look like.

Unrelated to this mod, the electric pump I have is a SeaMax and it is setup to plug into a cigarette outlet. The parts came in, so I hooked up a cigarette outlet to a trolling motor plug. This will allow me to simply unplug the trolling motor and plug in the pump when needed so I don't have to open up the battery box and use alligator clips.

 

[yoderjac]

I made a bit more progress this morning. The fixed outer pipe sections have all been glued in place. In this picture you see the inner pole inserted.

I used the trailer as a proxy for the water level. I'm sure the water level will be slightly above that. I made the inner post tall enough that I can drop the transducer about a foot deep. I'm sure that is much further and I will need to to remove any issues. I doubt I'd ever need to run it more than 6" deep, and for safety purposes I doubt I will. When I put it in the stowed position, that pole will really stick up a lot, so once I get it in the water and test it out, I'll probably cut off the top of the pole to reduce the adjustment to just what I need.

 

[yoderjac]

I finished up the mounting pole for the 2D/DI/SI transducer this morning. I removed it from the boat and put it in a vise so I could test all the settings. Here it is in the deepest setting:

The next picture shows it in the shallowest operating position:

The picture below shows it in the stowed position

The final pic shows it mounted back on the boat in the stowed position: