Basic Boat Wiring

Review of straightforward electrical wiring in a boat and boat overview. If youre running wiring through your boats engine room abyc standards assume the temperature is 1220f 500c.

This restoration is a how to series that will turn this.

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Basic boat wiring. We start with batteries. Make a rough drawing of the boat looking down from the top. This is sometimes a long wiring run on a boat.

Make a drawing showing where the wiring will be. It is much different than wiring for a car or a home. Electricity on boats can be scary mysterious stuff.

In short the wiring on a boat needs to be bigger tougher and more durable due to the corrosive effects of saltwater and salt air the pounding a boat at takes sea and the sometimes high level of vibration found on boats. Plus these two conductors will carry the current of all your electrical loads combined so they are typically fairly beefy cables. 10awg for larger boats 5 10 loads is normal.

This is what designers call a general arrangement and shows how the boat is laid out. Do you wish a pro would walk you through a simple system step by step. Even a small boat 3 5 loads wed recommend at least 12awg wire for this.

You got your wish in this new video series. If youre planning a circuit with 6 awg wire size it can safely carry 80 amps outside the engine room but only 464 amps in the hotter engine room environment. A parallel circuit top and a series circuit bottom are used for different jobs on boats.

This is a multi part starcraft aluminum boat restoration project. One last important piece of advice to remember about basic boat wiring is this. Jeff cote is a systems design engineer and owner of pacific yacht systems a full service shop delivering marine electrical and navigation solutions for recreational boats.

The wiring of individual devices will usually be in parallel circuits with fuses or circuit breakers available at an electrical panel.