"ground at the base of the ladder was wet. The
boat was plugged in and
charging by way of a long extension cord to a
power pole. Another live extension cord was hanging off my
boat onto the ground. "
It is possible that everything was just fine, BUT somewhere
water was getting at one of the lie wires and that's all it takes, even a heavy dew formation can reach into the pins of a standard extension cord and put a "tingle" down 100' of the exterior plastic.
You're lucky it was just a tingle and you weren't thrown off the ladder.
For $5-10 in any
hardware store you can get an outlet tester. Three green LEDs if everything is right, some red if something is wrong. Makes it very simple to check plugs for gross errors.
There are also non-contact pen testers, they look like a big
cheap plastic pen, and you just hold the tip near a suspect wire or fitting. If the wire is energized, the tip of the "pen" lights up to warn you. Usually used to make sure fixtures are dead before you
work on them, vaguely $20? but it might be worthwhile in the changing situations of a boatyard, to know it was safe before touching something on a damp day.
Now, if the problem was some wet cord energizing the ground...harder to find, you'd need to chase that one. But if your
lifelines were energized, I'd question the
wiring on the boat very carefully. In theory a "marine" connection on the boat shouldn't be able to have that damp-to-cord leakage, something else might be wrong.
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