Last year on the way to Newport for the BDA1-2, my bow lights went out. Then on the way to Bermuda, my tricolor went out; the anchor light too. I suspected there was some short somewhere in the boat and wanting to change a few things, plus planning for future work, I decided to rewire the electrical panel. There was one other consideration and that was that in it's original configuration you had a very small hole to stick your head through to reach the terminal blocks and it was damn near impossible to work on. What I really wanted was something that would be easy to work on, neater and a little more orderly. This is what I started with:
The panel as it was when I bought the boat.
After removing everything but before I cut out the plywood.
Next came the fun job of disconnecting everything from the terminal blocks and then tracing all the wiring to verify what went where and if it actually worked.
Oy, what a mess. The blue tape marks where I cut out the existing plywood.
My double handed partner from last years BDA 1-2 helped immensely as we spent quite a bit of time testing every wire and circuit to verify if it worked and then labeling everything. One thing that puzzle us to no end was not having power at the bow for the bow light cable, but getting continuity. then half way between the bow and the panel we had power. I finally figured it out when I pulled out the wire and found this:
Basically the wire had been compromised at some point and moisture and corrosion did their work on the wire. Of course some of this damage is from me giving a good hard yank to pull it out and breaking it free from behind the liner.
Oh, and the tricolor went out because it had water in it! Nothing wrong w the wiring. Signal Mate replaced it the same week I sent it back. Kudos to them!
Carol and I then spent several hours one cold February day removing all the solid copper Romex cable for all the 110v outlets on the boat and pulling new stranded wire to bring the wiring up to ABYC code. While solid wire was standard in the 1980's, it's susceptible to breakage from the vibration and movement on a boat. Oh, and let's not even talk about the wire nuts that were joining some of the splices! A HUGE no-no in the marine environment.
I had bought a brand new BLUE SEA DC panel and and AC panel for the boat as well as a piece of 1/2" black Starboard to mount them on. After drawing out my layout on vellum and carefully measuring multiple times I cut out the openings, drilled and tapped holes for the fasteners and did a trial fit. Almost perfect and after shaving off a bit here and there it was. Perfect that is. To further gussy things up and to hide the plywood edges I cut some Brazilian Cherry scrap that I had in my shop and made the trim pieces that go around the edges of the new panel. With a stainless steel piano hinge so the whole assembly can fold down for ease of working I was ready to move on to the next step.
Next came the really interesting work albeit slow and sometimes tedious. Mounting terminal blocks on Starboard behind the panel I set to work making all the connections. Wire runs from the various lights, fixtures, instruments had a label attache with clear shrink tubing and then ring terminals crimped and heat shrinked. Then I had to do the same going from the terminal blocks to the appropriate breaker on the panel.
While I still have a few things I want to add and tweak, this new panel is so much better than the previous one. Having room to expand and having everything clearly marked is a huge improvement.
