Zinc Fish hookup

[Phil P]

Last season I hooked up a zinc fish to the chrome surround on my shore power inlet. At season's end, not much had happened. This year I thought I'd attach it to the negative terminal of my house bank. Today I found my house bank batteries were dead. I'm guessing this was not a bright thing to do.

So...any suggestions on where or what to hook up the clamp from a zinc fish to on a large sailboat? I guess in theory it should be attached somehow to the prop shaft, but that's not really practical.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Don't

 

[Lost Parent]

What do you mean don't

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

When I had my boat in a real garbage dump of a marina for two years, I had the overboard zinc attached to the engine block to protect the shaft and prop. This was in addition to three shaft zincs. Measured resistance between the block and the shaft was 0.00 ohms.

Never could figure out why some people go in for fancy copper brushes to contact the shaft for a good electrical connection to an overboard zinc .................. the metal parts between the block and the shaft are large in cross section and very tightly connected.