Water temp ideas

[biglurr54]

I have an old pontoon that I'm breathing life into. I am looking for ideas on how to get water temps for swimming. I have a depth finder with water temp built in but I have no where to mount the transducer. There are no plates on the back olf the tubes. I also don't really want to wire up a depth finder and drain the battery. I only use a lawn mower battery for starting so i want to avoid added drain on the battery.

I hung a pool thermometer off the front pontoon but it broke the first trip out from slamming on the slash guards and tube.

Any other ideas on how to get water temps?

 

[Alumarine]

How about an Infra Red temp gun?

 

[H20Rat]

Going to say the obvious, but most of the time I'd rather not know the water temp when swimming. If there are chunks of ice floating, it is too cold. Otherwise jump in, preferably with a life jacket. I've had plenty of people on my boat that refused to jump in after I told them the temp. (wife included) If I don't tell them it is on the depth finder, nobody cares and nobody complains.

 

[H20Rat]

deleted

 

[Scott Danforth]

Mount fishtank thermometer strip on your boat hook. Then shove in water for one minute. Pull out to read.

Or just jump in

 

[Silvertip]

Lawn mower battery for starting what size engine?

 

[TyeeMan]

What, you don't want to drill into tube? :lol::noidea:

The water temp sensor on the depth finder will only give you surface temp. Also, you would have to run the depth finder for a LONG time to drain the battery.

I doubt an infrared thermometer would work as the beam needs to reflect off the surface the temp is being measured, , and that's whole can of worms. You could have a black surface, bare aluminum surface, brass, and chrome surface. If all were a known 90 degrees you will get vastly different temps from the infrared gun.

You could jump onto Amazon (some stores have them as well) and purchase a digital cooking thermometer, the kind where the probe is on a 3 foot cord, then you could get water temps 2-3 feet down. If you go this rout you must have the type that has a silicone sheath over the thermo couple wire. If you get the stainless steel braided type water will permeate the cable and you will get erroneous readings.