green white black mast wiring?

[Spoooner]

Hi,


I have a new to me Catalina 30. It has 3 in one sleeve wiring going up the mast, green,white, and black. Ive tried different combos, I cant get masthead lights working. (Spreaders work fine off differing wiring)


MAIN QUESTION: Is there a common masthead wiring scheme for the green/white/black wires?



There is no combo switch on the panel. Single switch for bow nav lights, anchor lights, mast nav lights. This is not original panel.


Thanks for any leads.



Thanks

[Lake-Effect]

I worked on the mast wiring of a Catalina 30 this year, as well as others. Most often we'd pull AWG#14-3 up the mast for the combo steaming/foredeck light fixture. If I recall correctly, white was steaming light, green was the foredeck light, and black was the common. There was a separate pair of wires feeding the anchor light, on that boat.

[Spoooner]

So to be clear, common in this 12v boat would mean that if black was to ground, the white and green to positive would be a working circuit.

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by Spoooner

So to be clear, common in this 12v boat would mean that if black was to ground, the white and green to positive would be a working circuit.

You’ve got the gist of it….however 3 conductor cable with blk/wht/grn is meant for AC service, so the wires could be connected anyway.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

You’ve got the gist of it….however 3 conductor cable with blk/wht/grn is meant for AC service, so the wires could be connected anyway.

Indeed.

[Spot]

Is there a connector at the mast base?
Is there an anchor light?
Is there a steaming light?

My boat has wiring that prevents anchor and nav lights to be on at the same time (ANCHOR - OFF -NAV). Yours might have this between bow nav and masthead nav but it is hard to determine over the interwebs without tracing things back to the panel. If the masthead is multi-function it might be relying on some sort of toggled switching: one click for anchor, two for nav, three for steam...also hard to say without knowing make/model of light.

It might be worth drawing a schematic from panel to mast and getting a couple-three small accessory lights and wiring them to the mast base connector for test purposes. Once the function of switches and wires are more clear then wire to the mast.