Electrical

Self sufficiency is one of the most glamorous (to us) features of boat life. We look forward to the day that we can travel the world under wind power, take our food and water from the abundance of the ocean (well the water anyway, the fish will be a bonus) and draw our electrical power from the sun. As we prepare for our trip each thing that we have purchased and installed that helps the boat to sail better and safer has received a little emotional boost from the incidental fulfillment of the self-sufficiency goal. ...

I was all excited to start working on the new windlass install when I heard Olive yell, “Daaaaddyy. Can you please turn on the light. I can’t do it.” Within minutes I was tearing the boat apart looking for the source of the problem. A problem that got worse as I went. Before the end of the following day we had no lights in the aft cabin or galley. What’s worse, most of the cable for those lights were the original 40 year old run, so it was built right into one of the few parts of the boat that I have no access to. My only recourse was to rewire the whole system. ...