Adding current sonar and GPS tech to my 30 year old Capri

caprintx

Member
Thanks to the ideas from fine skippers here, I recently made a temporary cuddy door out of a Wal-Mart cutting board and flush mounted a Garmin sonar/GPS unit for those days when there's no wind and plenty of time to cruise the lake using a trolling motor.

Just sharing the result.

It's cool that much of the technology that was once reserved for big yachts or rescue operations is now within reach of the casual Capri owner. I put two deep cycle batteries down below, wired in parallel. Today I ran at 60% motor power for four hours and only used 25% of the battery bank's energy.

Of course, I can remove everything and easily put the boat back to its intended configuration when the wind is cooperating to get back to the sport sailing that this boat was designed for. So fun!
 

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Thanks! The trolling motor batteries are in typical plastic marine battery boxes. They fit nicely when gently lowered into the cuddy, on either side of the keel support.

The low weight is nice to have. But since they're not secured, I'll remove the batteries before sailing in anything but the lightest winds.

The boat already had a simple electrical system and secured SLA battery to run LED navigation lights (pictured). So I can tap into that to keep the Garmin unit going without the big batteries on board if I choose.

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Thanks Greg. Pictured is the Garmin "Striker 7dv". I've also used the Garmin "echoMAP 73dv", which adds highly detailed maps and more advanced chart plotting features.
 
Thanks Greg. Pictured is the Garmin "Striker 7dv". I've also used the Garmin "echoMAP 73dv", which adds highly detailed maps and more advanced chart plotting features.
Also where is the transducer mounted on the stern or are you shouting it through the hull ?
 
It's mounted at the stern, only because I wanted to be able to use the water temp thermometer in the transducer. If I find that I can live without the most accurate water temp displayed (quite likely), I'll try a through-hull installation next.
 

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