Be careful what you pay for

[Seapig]

I am not sure where this will go, but I am so gobsmacked by the experience I post this as a kind of cautionary tale.
I recently spent the last 10 days helping a friend do some electrical work on his boat. (it was supposed to take a couple of hours) My friend is moderately frightened by electricity and hence has had all electrical work done by "marine electricians" associated with reputable yards.
-The Air Con was hooked up with a total of five different pieces of wire butt connected together. Three of those wires were solid 3 wire residential wire.

- The Air Con compressor was wired such that the frame was live. It worked because it was on a fiberglass boat and there was no ground to the compressor
- The generator was connected to the shore power such that if it was turned on the generator would back feed the shore power.
- The inverter was hooked to the battery charger such that when activated the inverter powered the battery charger that charged the batteries that charged the inverter etc. This may have been an attempt to invent perpetual motion I am not sure.
- There was a bare (powered) plug lying in the bottom of the access area that was meant to be plugged into the inverter manually when not on shore power. When on shore power it was hot.

We also pulled out several hundred feet of wire that just been cut off and left. Several were still powered.


I hope that my friend was just extremely unlucky but I suspect this problem is more widespread than might be appreciated.

[Emmalina]

I suppose it also depends how much of this was existing owner mods ?
I have put my head in a few boats and told them no thanks this is a mess !!

[grantmc]

I'm sure that's not a unique story, but thanks for posting. Time, DIY, want it cheap, new kit, and the difficulties of running and hiding wire all contribute to that result in many boats.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by Seapig

I hope that my friend was just extremely unlucky but I suspect this problem is more widespread than might be appreciated.

About 80% of my survey recommendations are electrical issues. About 7 out of 10 boats I survey are unsafe. 99.5% of owners have no clue.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

About 80% of my survey recommendations are electrical issues. About 7 out of 10 boats I survey are unsafe. 99.5% of owners have no clue.

Unsafe, or just not abyc?

I know of some things on my boat i did 10 years ago that probably not abyc, but i feel are safe and followed “good practices”.

[hpeer]

I was taking a test prep class for Engineering Fundamentals, that is the first of 2 tests you take to get a Professional Engineer License. At the tine all disciplines needed to pass the same fundamentals test. The electrical stuff was 1-1/2 sessions long, they were the last classes in the series.

In the penultimate class, at the half way break, the instructor says “OK guys, thats it except for electrical. Anyone not interested in electrical can leave now.” Well over half the class left. These guys were all degreed engineers aspiring to become licensed Professionals, and they had no interest in the basic fundamentals if electricity.

My sense is that there is something about perceptions, some folks just can not hold electrical concepts in their head, it is too obtuse, the analogies don’t work.

ABYC, NEC and the like are attempts to provide rules you can’t screw up written for folks who din’t truly understand. It is a necessity for many.

Electricians may understand the code and how to wire according to code without understanding the concepts of electricity.

I have been in protracted discussions with highly respected Professional Engineers over NEC grounding requirements for control centers where no single consensus could he reached. As I was the one approving this design the best I could do was require the designers select ONE particular approach and then adhere to that across the board. I required the designers to conform to one standard, not each do their own thing. It then came out that they had already done substantial wiring which needed to be ripped out and redone. Yeah, not my problem, make it so. Not a real comfortable feeling. More egregious stories exist.

When you get to boats, with all their special systems and also materials and methods, the number of folks who really understand is pretty small. So you get a lot of guys who wing it. They hear/read something and run with it as gospel.

I don’t know what the “fix” is. I do my own work my own way, not always to ABYC. But it’s my boat, I am comfortable with my work, and I don’t intend to sell. Others are at the mercy of the Gods. How do you vet an “electrician”? How much does it cost to farm it out vs DIY? Yeah, I can easily see problems arising.

[hpeer]

Quickie.

I just recalled reading a Beth Leonard book about their first boat and having to redo some work. Her comment was something along the lines of......

A valuable lesson we learned is we could pay first class prices for professional work with no assurance we would get professional results.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

Unsafe, or just not abyc?

I know of some things on my boat i did 10 years ago that probably not abyc, but i feel are safe and followed “good practices”.

I see this stuff daily. You be the judge ...

http://www.pcmarinesurveys.com/ACDC%...e%20photos.htm

Marine Survey 101, pre-survey inspection

Safe Ventilation of Gasoline Engine Compartments

Stoopid Boat Owners tricks

Stoopid boat builder tricks

[Seapig]

Boatpoker. Excellent links. I am more appalled then when I started.

Hpeer. Even more appalled.



In my friends case most of the mess that we fixed was not DIY but stuff that he paid good money to have installed. The previous owner may have cut some of the wires.



On a different note. Are any of the production catamarans laid out so one can get access to those unimportant systems like the engine, the electrical, refrigeration, cooling etc. After 10 days of hanging upside down with one leg stuck behind my ear, wishing my elbows bent the other way, I have a new found appreciation for access.

thx
SP

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by grantmc

I'm sure that's not a unique story, but thanks for posting. Time, DIY, want it cheap, new kit, and the difficulties of running and hiding wire all contribute to that result in many boats.

An insightful post, Grant. At the time, it's seductive to leave them in, in case you might want that gauge run for something else in the future or to act as fiches in the future....then at the time of sale, it's really just not on your mind.

Of course, leaving it hot and unlabeled.....

Ann

[Apollo366]

Geez!!

And I thought I'd seen it all!

[Bycrick]

Expensive, poorly designed, even more poorly executed work done by supposed "professionals" is much more common than you’d imagine. Doing electrical systems correctly may not be rocket science, but there’s more ways to do it wrong or poorly than there are to do it right.

It’s not horribly difficult to read the many DIY books and figure out a safe, workable system. But when someone who’s getting paid suddenly finds out in the middle of a job that he’s missing "the right, necessary piece," there’s an often irresistible impulse to "finish" the job with what he has at hand rather than waste a day going back to the shop/ store to get what’s needed.

But sometimes "professionals" will sell you what they have in stock, or the units that they know well, or make more money on. You’re only real protection is to know enough to supervise what they’re doing.

[joelhemington]

Originally Posted by Seapig

I am not sure where this will go, but I am so gobsmacked by the experience I post this as a kind of cautionary tale.
I recently spent the last 10 days helping a friend do some electrical work on his boat. (it was supposed to take a couple of hours) My friend is moderately frightened by electricity and hence has had all electrical work done by "marine electricians" associated with reputable yards.
-The Air Con was hooked up with a total of five different pieces of wire butt connected together. Three of those wires were solid 3 wire residential wire.

- The Air Con compressor was wired such that the frame was live. It worked because it was on a fiberglass boat and there was no ground to the compressor
- The generator was connected to the shore power such that if it was turned on the generator would back feed the shore power.
- The inverter was hooked to the battery charger such that when activated the inverter powered the battery charger that charged the batteries that charged the inverter etc. This may have been an attempt to invent perpetual motion I am not sure.
- There was a bare (powered) plug lying in the bottom of the access area that was meant to be plugged into the inverter manually when not on shore power. When on shore power it was hot.

We also pulled out several hundred feet of wire that just been cut off and left. Several were still powered.

I hope that my friend was just extremely unlucky but I suspect this problem is more widespread than might be appreciated.

Having been raised in the Electrical Contracting business and having worked on many remodels over the years., there are times when it makes a lot more sense to just rip out the old stuff and start from scratch rather than trying to make heads or tails of somebodies mess. Materials are expensive but labor is king. It sounds like your buddy needs to think about this approach as there is clearly a bad evolution happening here with too many cooks in the kitchen.

[P3sailor]

I've done some work on several boats I've sailed on and your story is spot on. I suspect much of what I've seen had been done by previous owners but then again many who work at marinas are scrutinized on the time it took to do a job so keeping the job neat and orderly is secondary, not to mention complying with CG regulations.

[bcboomer]

One of the most surprising things I found on my boat was the wiring at the base of the mast. The previous owner had the boat hauled to Washington and then had the mast stepped and rigged by "professionals".

Of the 6 wires reconnected, 2 were nicely crimped and wrapped in heat shrink tubing, 2 were connected with marettes and 2 were twisted together with electrical tape. All in the bilge.