Newbie - Do i need a depth gauge?

[Jimbolio]

Hey Gurus,

I'm looking to get my small inflatable sib on some local rivers/canals as a learner driver honing up.
I have concerns by the unseen shopping trolleys and sticky up pointed stuff I'll probably come across en route!

Should I get a depth gauge/transducer or just try and keep my eyes peeled?

If so, any recommendations that wont break the bank are warmly welcomed, particularly stand alone ones that see in front of where I'm headed if possible...

[Fenlander]

Anything you'd fit to a SIB within SIB budgets shows where you've just been. It's outside my experience but I think forward looking sonar is £1000 or more and not infallible.

Just got to chance it on rivers really. I always say they are almost more likely to have nasty pointy things than the sea.

[Fenlander]

Also be reassured as that older Avon is a very tough inflatable.

[jeffstevens763@g]

Fenlanders right by the time you would, if, you had seen an object you've hit it with a sonar, unless forward looking buy a spare prop it's cheaper. I don't do rivers but in 50 years of boating I've hit my prop once that was pre sonar, charts & local knowledge on the isle of Skye

[Limecc]

I narrowly missed a metal railing spike in the tidal Trent near the lock at Torksey, I had a plastic bag around the prop in the canal at West Stockwith and in the Trent & Mersey Canal this time in a RIB the depth was only a little over 3 feet and I was pulling into the water intake all kinds of crud which can get wedged in the engine's internal waterways. Canals are best left to flat bottomed craft with steel hulls. I think the most common problem for a soft hull is submerged wood not metal and the water is always so murky, often there's only a few inches visible below the surface - you are effectively driving blind.

Sonar is great though but not for your intended usage. You could maybe get something second hand at a very reasonable price and you can sell it on or transfer it to your next boat as required.