I’m not a big fan of electronics in the cockpit as a wet and UV-rich environment is really not a great place to mount them. Sure they all say they’re designed for the wet and have covers to deal with the UV issue but, at least in my personal experience, the instruments start showing their age long before instruments that live inside the boat.
I’ve played with putting the instruments on a hinged mount that pivots to the companionway but at best it’s a bit too Rube Goldberg for my tastes.
The two instruments I actually need in the cockpit are speed and depth. On second thought I really only need depth but since I have an analog mechanical drive speed/log it can live quite happily in the cockpit so why not?
Anyway, I was working out cunning ways to mount my chart plotter/fish finder in the cockpit when I realized that it really should be mounted inside with just a repeater in the cockpit but looking at the cost of repeaters just about made me cry as the price for my unit was insane when all I needed was something to tell me the current depth.
The fact was that a standalone depth sounder cost less than a hundred bucks and took up minimal space at two inches in diameter so I wound up getting this one…
With a street price of a kiss less than $100 (I paid $80) it seems that someone always has them on sale for even less.
Sure, no bells and whistles but it works and tells me exactly what I need to know when I’m coming into an anchorage or running a depth profile. Better yet it keeps my much more expensive chartplotter/fishfinder inside where it’s protected from the elements.
I’ll call that a win/win.