Echosounder

An echosounder helps you to measure the water depth and to prevent collisions with unseen underwater rocks, reefs and other objects. It transmits short pulses of vibrations from the bottom of the ship to the seabed. These waves are reflected back by the seabed and the time from transmission to reception is measured. Afterwards it is converted into an electrical signal by the transducer which is then shown as a graph on the LCD display or, if you have an older version, through a stylus which signals a black mark on a paper. This mark indicates the depth of the seabed. There are different versions of an echosounder: some are for your safe navigation, some for surveying purposes, and others are research echosounders.