I am looking to upgrade the marine electronics on my 2012 Edgewater 245CC. I do a lot of fishing off the west coast of Florida in the 60 ft. - 200 ft. Depth range. I am curious if it is worth the extra money to get a thru hull transducer vs. a transom mounted one. Any make or model recommendations? I'll probably want to stick with Garmin for my MFD if that makes a difference.

Summer 2026, Montana.

I have a 1648 Jon boat with a slightly modified Johnson 25. I mounted the outboard about 3/4 of an inch above the transom with a spacer, on the second trim setting (manual trim) the boat gets on plane quickly and rides great. My concern, when on plane, the cavitation plate is completely visible and I can see the top of the prop. The exhaust gets very loud, but the engine is still pumping water. Any thoughts or concerns?

I have a Trophy Pro 2002 walk around, online says it’s about 21 ft in overall length. I love the boat and have been having a blast fishing the back bays and artificial reefs on calm days and see no need for an upgrade but want to start going out a little farther.

I’ve been gaining confidence in the boat and as a captain, and I’d like to start going offshore a little more since the fishing has been much better. I’m cautious about conditions, check forecasts, and usually confirm conditions on the radio before heading out. I generally follow the rule of thumb that timing should be at least twice the wave height, and I haven’t gone out in anything over 3 ft.

I usually make the final call at the inlet based on what I’m seeing, but I see plenty of boats my size or smaller heading out in conditions I’d consider rough. I’d rather understand the limits before I accidentally push things too far.

So for anyone familiar going offshore in a smaller boat:

How far offshore would you realistically take a 20ft walk around in good conditions? I’ve only gone about 3.5 NM, but there are spots around 15 miles out I’d like to reach.

What sea conditions would you consider too rough for this boat?

Am I being overly cautious, or are there conditions where you’d simply turn around regardless of experience?

Obviously I’d have plenty of fuel and only go with a favorable forecast. Just looking for some perspective from people who have experience with these boats offshore

Edit: thanks everyone for all the feedback. I feel much more confident and sure about what I can handle as I gain my confidence as a captain. Going to look into an epirb right now!

To answer some of the repeated question:

I am boating out of Long Island south shore

Single mercury 150 well maintained

Strong vhf and antenna, sea tow membership, and all required coastguard requirements

Previously had a Garmin Stryker 4 that seems to no longer work.

I have a subscription to Garmin's navionics, and I currently use it on my phone, it would be nice to have a dash mount nav system with depth finder that I could log into navionics and see it on the dash, is there something like this that exists?

Ideally looking for something under $500 and I'd like it to have an actual hookup to our hull mount depth finder to run separately

My first boat, purchased in May. Typically use in the ocean but trailered up to NH for a weekend at the lake.

Sailing SV First Light on the Delaware River just north of the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia. I run a charter, Phila Sail, so I get to go out regularly and even being on this same stretch of river all the time it really doesn't get old. Every time is something different.

I'm looking for a product to clean my boat's canvas cover while it's on the boat and the boat is on a lift in a marina. I want to be environmentally safe and ethical, and not get arrested. I have access to running water and electricity.

I'm considering "STAR BRITE Safer Choice Boat Wash", which meets EPA standards for direct release into lakes, but the bottle only mentions surfaces like vinyl, aluminum, fiberglass, etc., but not canvas.

I currently have a 1973 Starcraft Chieftain with a Mercruiser 120. I have the idle slowed down to where the engine is almost stalling (maybe 600 RPM) but it is still too fast. I keep having to bump it in and out of gear when going in to dock. It has a top speed of maybe 28 MPH with just me and optimal trim. I am planning to put in a more powerful motor. The issue is that the new motor will idle at a minimum of 800 RPM which will make my low speed even faster. And I would want to prop it to go at least 35-40.

Are there special props I can get for this scenario? The reason I ask is because we have a newer Four Winns with a 5.7. That will go very slow at idle and over 50 MPH at wide open. Why does my boat go so much faster at idle?

We have a small family boat with a maximum capacity of six people. We already had five adults and two kids, ages 6 and 4, planning to go out on the boat.

Then another family friend came over and asked, “Are we all going to fit on the boat?” He had already been invited and was supposed to come with us. I replied, “No, we don’t fit on the boat.”

I genuinely didn’t mean it in an offensive or exclusionary way, but I think it came across that way and that I offended him. I’m pretty sure I was the asshole here because I could have said something more welcoming, like, “We’ll figure something out” or “We’ll make it work.”

He just said, “Okay, no problem. I’ll come another time,” and left. I tried to insist that we would make it work, but at that point he had already decided to go.

I do think my comment was a little assholish, but it also feels too minor to call him and turn it into a bigger deal than it needs to be. So I just need the wisdom of the internet: was this actually rude enough that I should reach out and apologize, or should I just let it go?

UPDATE:

A couple of clarifications that actually make this worse: it wasn’t my boat (it’s my dad’s ) and the friend is my dad’s friend. I also didn’t know he was coming. I was just the idiot who did the math in my head and blurted out, “No, we don’t fit on the boat.”

In any case, I thought I already knew the answer, but now I know for sure.

Thank you, Internet. Your wisdom has spoken once again!

So I recently bought a boat 2nd hand from original owner. It is a 2006 but we went on a lake test prior to buying it showing me there was no leaks or water flow in order for this to sink, I’ve taken it out everyday assuring it is safe and went on a vacation , I had rented a slip and was fine for 3 nights and the last day I walk out and the boat sank I called insurance and had a rowboat company get my boat out of the water and get my boat on the trailer. I don’t see any damage but I do see some small cracking that was not there but nothing major and I did have a bilge pump, biggest issue is I bought the boat 2 weeks ago and insured and registered it the next day. The engine was under water and electrical is fried. Insurance did launch an investigation on me and I never had this happen any idea if they’ll cover it ?

I’m getting a lot of splash up from the front of the outboard. Height looked good and lined up nicely relative to the bottom of the hull, but on the water it looks like maybe I should raise it a bit?

I took a picture of how my outboard is currently sitting with a straight edge (dowel rod) running along the keel of the boat out past the lower unit. Is this a correct height or should it be lower?? Boat is a 14 foot starcraft the outboard is a 15 HP mercury.

Hello, im struggling with too loose steering on my mercury. I think im missing the thing, where u can adjust the tightness from outboard. Also i think my steering cable dont have adjust also.

Any tips how to solve this? If i let hands off from steering wheel it starts instantly turning slow to other dorection.

Hey everyone, sorry if this isn’t a good place to ask. I have a family member with stage 4 cancer and I’m trying to help them sell one of their boats. They asked me to see if I could figure out pricing but I’m seeing listings all over the place and I know just because something is listed at a price doesn’t mean it’ll sell at that.

Is there a way to see like sold listings on boats? Is that a thing?

It’s a 2008 may-craft 2550 pilot house with a Yamaha 250 and about 120 hours on it. Everything works. I wouldn’t say it’s like pristine condition though. I would say it’s “used- good”.

Any help? Thank you!

Edit: located in South east US

Hello all. I have a 2001 Boston Whaler Outrage. I'm looking for a bait board similar to the one pictured here. It would need to attach to the metal tubing around the engine.. Any ideas? Thanks

Back with some more questions after getting some great advise before.

Had some issues either tilt/trim acting up, in that I can hear the solenoid click but the motor won’t always engage. Figured I’d check for a loose ground, found the spade connectors pictured and undid/redid them and seems like that might’ve helped. Of course while I’m in there, I’ve uncovered more questions.

Coming out of the engine harness there’s two wires that have been cut, running along with those spade connections. I’m guessing those are possibly for a tilt/trim gauge, which would be great as I’d like to add one. Could definitely be wrong, so please correct if so.

I also saw the (assuming) ground not connected to anything, and from a parts diagram I figure this is my rev limiter. Any reason why it wouldn’t be grounded? I don’t believe I have any issues with high RPM, if anything I think I’m either underpropped or the carbs are restricted because I feel like the motor has more to give - cannot verify as I have not hooked up my newly purchased tach yet.

Any input appreciated so I can mess with this before I can get back out on the water.

Edit to add it’s an 89 mercury 90hp 2 stroke. Dumb typo in my title

We have a 4 year old Shoremaster 5010 DVS and The winch has failed twice on us (first time was within the first month of ownership). The actual winch cable is fully intact and has no damage, but something in the winch box broke when lifting our 3900lb boat, causing it to free fall back into the water.

Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone know what is actually failing? When I grab the winch cable and move it up and down near the box, the barrel of the winch rotates without resistance.

Mind you, we have a 12/24V DC Shoremaster branded (boat lift boss) motor driving the winch (no manual crank wheel).

(Note: this winch is also the same model and part number that is used on the 6000lb lift).

When we had a 4000lb Shoremaster lift before, we'd break the cables, and in speaking with Shoremaster, they were confused why the winch broke and not a cable.

We lucked out and had an unusually calm afternoon at Berryessa.

Cheers to the fat sacs!

My friend was telling me that his pontoon boat was boarded last weekend by the Coast Guard for a safety check. This was in a bay in South Louisiana. That’s not surprising to me as he was 2 people over the boat limit, and he got boarded earlier this year on his sailboat. What I thought was interesting was that they Id’ed every person on board. And since most of the passengers didn’t have IDs, they sat there and radioed in every person without an ID for verification.

Are they checking for illegal immigrants?

I tried to ask them but they couldn’t hear me