I have an 89 wing keel and the electric is looking OLD. Does anyone have any videos or simple diagrams for one to rewire the boat I have the original lights etc. The previous owner cut the wires when he was trying to redo the mast lights. There is just wires in the molded sides and top. I'm wanting to do it right. I have zero electric skills in my past.
Electric help
- Thread starter paparog
- Start date
I fully rewired my 88 wing keel. However I am an electrical contractor so what is an everyday task for me might not translate to being easy for someone that doesn't do it all the time. No schematic, just an understanding of what I wanted to do with the boat. I also added a lot of additional 12v circuits for various equipment. What do you want to have powered on the boat? Obviously, there are the existing cabin lights, and the navigation lights. Do you have anchor light? Deck light? VHF?, Fridge? Inverter? Solar? ect. If you can provide as much information as you can I will try to help.
Morbid I will be at the boat this weekend and take photos will help. I have original circuit I'll take a photo the navigation is a direct wire of my Garmin 441S and transom to the battery. I have anchor cabin lights and accessory for a cigarette lighter. deck lights no vhf fridge inverter or solar. Just simple. We only day sail yet I wanted to have it updated in case we get a storm or darkness. The previous owner gave me 3 lights one for the bow , mast and anchor that are all LED. I have not installed them yet. it look like all the wiring is molded into the boat. Thank you for your offer I will surely send everything in photos the boat is 1 hour away.
Like morbidfollower, I too did some electrical upgrading. The previous PO had already replaced the original cabin lighting and also, converted the steaming/deck, anchor and navigation (running) lights to LEDs. My issues with the electrical centered on two minor and one major issue. The electrical panel remained the OEM black panel. It was functional but with the “crows nest” disaster that CD describes on the negative buss bar. I wanted to upgrade to the current CD Electrical Panel which provides eight circuits with two circuit breakers plus, its white with black letters making it much easier to identify what you’re switching on. The second minor issue was that the steaming/deck light was an older design that had a “floating” LED to illuminate the deck. I replaced that fixture with a steaming/deck combo that kept both LEDs out of the weather. The major issue was that in the PO’s upgrade, the Seadog OEM cabin top connector was swapped out for an industrial grade water proof connector which was broken and installed in the deck by someone without any boating experience. Because of the mess with the thru deck connector, I used CD’s four plex wire to route under the cabin floor through a molded fiberglass channel that runs on the port side of the keel bolts and then exits just a bit aft of the galley sink mold. This is the routing that the Catalina Yachts’ four plex took from the electrical panel to the deck connector. The difficult part is that once it exits a bit aft of the sink, it is routed up through the compression post exiting just below the deck and then being routed a bit forward through a hole in the deck to attach to the deck connector which you can then install with Bed-It Marine Buytl Tape for a water tight seal. A word of caution, give yourself ample length to comfortably attach the wires to the deck connector and then pull the excess wire back into the cabin. To make the attachment, you’ll need room for both your hands and screwdriver to secure the wires to the connector. None of this is difficult, just tedious and involves some contortions to run the wire and install a new buss bar. I recommend you look up Jim’s Little Boat YouTube channel and see the electrical panel and wiring videos. I hope this helps.
George
George
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Gene:
Thanks for posting that wiring diagram. Seeing it again brings back such fond memories. lol
paparog:
Note how the diagram shows the four plex mast wire being routed from the switch panel, through the molded fiberglass channel, and then, up thru the compression post to the deck connector to the. You can easily access this by removing the fiberglass panel just behind, and above the cooler/step down into the cabin and the port settee in front of the sink.
George
Thanks for posting that wiring diagram. Seeing it again brings back such fond memories. lol
paparog:
Note how the diagram shows the four plex mast wire being routed from the switch panel, through the molded fiberglass channel, and then, up thru the compression post to the deck connector to the. You can easily access this by removing the fiberglass panel just behind, and above the cooler/step down into the cabin and the port settee in front of the sink.
George
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I picked this spot on the boat as an electrical location for everything new as it was accessible and not really used by me at the time to store anything of note. Also relocated my battery bank to under the bow (questionable decision) so this was easy access with short battery cable runs. I did manage to clean up and salvage the original Catalina panel/location and still use it for cabin lights, nav lights, and cabin fans which you can still reach from the companionway. Everything else is controlled from here. (this is across the head by your legs). Below the lift up lid, is mounted my battery charger, below the battery disconnect on the inside is mounted my inverter. The gfci pictured is the only thing that is energized with the inverter. Also pictured is solar controller, remote switch for inverter, and 6 circuit control panel (vhf, fridge, auto pilot, Garmin chartplotter, and 2 separate 12v cigarette sockets spread thru-out the cabin. None of this is really necessary, just some options for if you are trying to make the boat more of a cruiser. For simplicity and weight, in retrospect I would have probably just cleaned up the original setup and then brought along a Jackery power bank or something instead. But I was excited to do something at the time
