Finally Peeked Behind the Switch Panel

[ozmike]

Wiring nightmares & previous owner attempts, I feel your pain, look what I found when I exposed my switch panel, photos clockwise, the wiring mess, wires taped,cut or just hanging around, nav before, Pos & neg buss bars would you believe pos is on left with 2 blue wires being power from 3-way switch/batteries, right is neg with red wires just to confuse me!!! and finally the near finished project, built 1985 so 25yrs of add ons !!!
P.s how do you seperate photos with description under like Saberkai's reply.

[SabreKai]

Seems you have a lot more systems than I do Oz, Lots of spaghetti in there. My system is fairly simple, only two lighting circuits and a electronic suite. I have 3x2 leads running aft from the panel, one is the stern light, one is the electronic suite, and the other is the stbd cabin light. The electronic suite has a small set of bus bars soe individual items can take power. They are all inline fused as well.
There are 5 leads running forward, two grounds, nav lights and house lights and 3 lighting circuits. Two are for the masthead light/ side navigation lights and spreader lights, the third is the port cabin lights and then the stbd forward cabin light and head lighting.

I put my individual photos on photobucket, and then as I write, I just cut and paste the image code then move down a couple of lines for the next description.

As for the cabin work, repairing the rotted base sections, I have a lot of people at the club telling me I should just bite the bullet, put the boat in a shop for the winter and rip the coach roof off altogether and make one up out of steel. From the point of view of strength and leak proof design it makes a lot of sense. But then I'd loose the mahogany both inside and outside which really makes the boat come alive for me. Every once in a while I wonder about the effects of a large breaking wave against the side of the coach but I think perhaps installing vertical posts inside the cabin against the sides that are welded to the coaming at the side deck and run from the ceiling overhead beams down to the hull stringers would add a hell of a lot of side resistance. If done properly they'd hardly be noticeable.

Sabre

[sabray]

really old stick bugs mating gross

[blahman]

Sabre,

I feel your pain! We rewired our Westsail 32 a couple years ago and got chills when we we started digging into the mess. Here are a few highlights:

Behind electric panel:


Engine area:


More engine bay:


End product:


New Panel:



Let us know how the project is coming. I'd love to see photos of your progress, and the rest of your boat and project.

You can see photos of our boat and projects here.

Happy planning,
Aaron N.