Sensor-base

Sensor Base

The first week of March Tortuga goes feet dry (Old Navy term) and has her bottom painted.  It will be the perfect time to replace her 20-year old fathometer with the new Raymarine ST40 display and Triducer® Multisensor.  The display shown below is capable of presenting two of three sensor values at the same time.  The choices are depth, speed and water temperature.  The Triducer is a bronze unit and the photo below is 50% of the actual size.  The triducer orientation on the hull is with the upper right portion of the fairing (in the photo) pointing forward when mounted.

st40-display

ST40

The initial ST40 arrived with the plastic through hull transducers.  It was my mistake to order that unit since one should never use plastic fittings on a wood hull.  The Raymarine literature specifically warns that the expansion and contraction of the wood will crack the plastic.  So a quick call to WestMarine got us in contact with a Raymarine specialist who corrected the order.  This unit has a removal paddle wheel assembly (speed sensor).  This unit can be removed during periods of non-cruising to minimize fouling.  There is a flap valve in the housing which keeps water intrusion to a minimum until the blank plug is inserted.

triducer

Triducer

A quick check of the cable from the triducer shows that the plugs are not compatible with the ST40 display.  A call to Raymarine provided this solution:  Cut the connectors from the triducer, install spade lugs to match the ST40 and match the color coding of the wires.

Stay tuned as we complete the yard trip on the 8th of March at the Huckins Yacht Facility in Jacksonville.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 9th, 2011 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Tortuga. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.