Buying 220 boat, as American couple new to cruising

[SonjaN]

Good morning!

We just put in an offer on a gorgeous catamaran that we’ve already fallen in love with. The immediate concern is that it is wired for European electricity as it originated in the Mediterranean before it was sailed across the Atlantic to Maryland. All of our devices (phones, laptops, cameras, etc.) are American. Will it be as easy as just buying universal travel plug adapters to charge our devices? The current owner says they have a variety of shore power cords that make cruising through the Caribbean and along the East Coast easy no matter where we go. I’m mostly worried about how life goes inside. I can live with adapters for charging phones, but don’t know if there are bigger issues? (Of course, our broker says it’s no big deal. “Buy the boat!”)

I appreciate any advice you may have for us! We are novices, sold our house to buy this boat and plan to cruise for a few years beginning in the Gulf and then through Caribbean and beyond.

[accomplice]

See http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...-a-220130.html among other threads

In summary, your phones, laptops and cameras won't care, but if you plan to hook up to shore power, use an isolation transformer. Also, be aware of complication when buying other appliances, from washer/dryer to water heater.

[Sparx]

Welcome to the forum, and congratulations on the new boat.

Regarding equipment inside the boat, phones, tablets, computers will be fine with 220v at the outlets It is the toaster, microwave, clothes washer, vacuum etc that will be a concern. The farther you get from North America the less of a problem this will be.

I would want to be very sure I understood how to plug a 220v boat into a 110v power point using adapters before I went any where with the boat.