Odd electrical system

[Wani II]

Afternoon, I have a beautiful boat but the owner installed wiring is just...odd. So is it easier on a 28' boat to just pull new wires or try to figure out what is what. I am the third owner and the first owner added TV, computer and phone lines without a guide key or really any basic knowledge of wiring. It's seems to have worked fine for 30 years but colours don't match or follow any sort of reason. Original company wiring is fine.

My thought is if I do it new then it will be on me and would just be safer in the long run. The boat survey, 5 years back, came back above advantage not mentioning electrical.

Anyway ideas?

[Mirage35]

My inclination, given that it all seems to work, would be to trace and document first. Then you can more clearly decide what should be reworked and what you can live with.

Spoken by someone who bought a 30 year old boat on which the PO had rewired and documented absolutely everything. Thanks, Keith!

[Shenandoah52]

If you decide to rewire, where possible use the old wire to pull the new wire around and through cabinetry and bulkheads by tying or securing the new wire to the old wire and pulling through to where it goes. You can't do it for all your wires but it's a good tip when you can use it.

Also remove any old wiring where you can. I had to rewire all the gauges on a dashboard for a 30 footer, as an example, where the shop that installed the new gauges ran wires from the engine compartment through the boat and up to the dashboard at the helm. They completely screwed the job up so the owner took it to my shop for repair.

What I found was the other shop had simply cut the wires at the sending units and at the gauges and left the old wires in place. They did this for every device. It was a nightmare chasing down the gremlins in that boats. I had to make sure any loose wire hanging in that boat wasn't connected to any power source as well as attached to any device it no longer need to be attached to. You can't be at the helm and be in the engine compartment at the same time so troubleshooting an electrical problem becomes exponentially harder down the road if you leave loose wires.

[Wani II]

Thanks, that's the way my first mate is leaning, sounds like an afternoon job. Pre beer.

[Cat36Mahalo]

A probe and tone (aka fox and hound) is your friend chasing down wires