Stern light replacement and wiring

[moldycheese13]

I have a 1979 Catalina 30. The stern light broke off (crossed stern dock lines somehow did it) and I need to wire in the new light. I haven’t tried doing anything yet, but I wanted to know where the wiring for the light is typically routed. I’m not sure if things have been moved by previous owners, but the light is deck mounted at the center of the stern and the batteries and wiring all runs to the nav station on the starboard side.

My assumption is that it runs down the spine of the hull and I would access through the openings there and the vertical opening underneath the cockpit at the stern.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[sail sfbay]

Page 12 for your manual might be helpful: file:///E:/Backup/USB20FD/Driver's%20License/Catalina%2030%20Manual.pdf

 

[Justin_NSA]

Would you not just need to attach a new fixture the the existing red and black leads?

 

[Capt jgw]

You should be able to pull enough wire out of the hole to apply heat shrink crimps to attach the new light. Hopefully they left enough slack, you only need a couple inches. Then push the wires back in the hole and install the light.

 

[Kingjim91]

On my ‘82, the wires run along the port side inside the lazerette.
When they get to the transom, they‘re laid into the fiberglass of the cockpit.
If the exposed wire is too short for you to work with, you’ll need to splice on a little extra.

 

[moldycheese13]

Turns out the wires were still attached to the broken base of the light and there was slack to add a new one. Thanks all.

anyone know easiest way to replace bulbs for front nav lights? Looks like I have to access them through anchor locker and remove the interior covers. That sound correct?

 

[BVLew]

I just pulled the bulbs right out from inside the anchor locker. (But, since my lights were 42 years old and the red and green had faded so much they were essentially the same color, about a month ago I replaced the whole units with new LED bulbs and fixtures from Catalina Direct.)