£25 depth sounder!?

Inspired by the beautifully simple Navigation setup on the Europa 19 on my previous blog, I started to think about what I would need for a similar set-up.

£25 sounder / fish finder

I already have a basic Hand held GPS and a Iris 100 (as well as a 50) so just needed to sort out a hand held VHF (see previous post) and so I was a little unsure as to a sounder.

After a trawl over the usual sites I had a quick skim over ebay where I found a portable hand held sounder (Lucky Fish finder!?) which had a cable (7.5m) attached transducer, allegedly good for up to 100m. At £25 I was wondering if anyone else ever used one as a sounder rather than a fish finder?

Hunter 19, I wish!!

Hunter 19

Looks like the Hunter 19 is trying to push itself into my mind this week. After seeing a link on Dylan Winters Site (KTL) to a YouTube video of a Shetland - Norway trip, I was inspired by the owners Hunter 19 and how effective she was and also how well maintained!

The genius that I liked was the way the boat had been kitted out with affordable items but offered fantastic functionality. A small wooden plinth has been cut to size to sit in the companion way and then crafted to take a GPS, Plastimo 100 and a Garmin fish finder. The hand held VHF completes the set at the end.

GPS / Compass / Depth / VHF - £350 all in. Genius!

This if definitely on the plans for my boat now!

Blow me down if theirs not a Hunter 19 for sale in NZ on the TradeMe site inviting offers of around NZ$2500, that's about £1250!

If only we were there already I'd have snapped it up!!

Items pre New Zealand

With the move to New Zealand now looming large I've been looking over what is best bought here and taken with me and what I can get out in the Antipodes.

As I already have a number of items it comes down to the usual suspects...

A Hand Held VHF Radio, such as the cheap and cheerful 3 Watt HH125 and perhaps a bulk head compass such as the Mini Contest. But when you start to look into the price of technology via on-line stores you find there's very little difference in price between the 2 countries once you take the exchange rate into account, although Compasses are a little more expensive then here.

So sadly as much as I love to buy kit, I'll wait till we get there.