Electrical

Another important part of keeping the boat dry for the winter is to get the bilge pump running.  Currently, it's not connected to any power source.  This got me thinking about the electrical system on the boat in general.  Currently, our electrical system consists of:

a 12v battery

 

some wires running from the bilge pump that aren't connected to anything

Some running lights (state unknown) with wires that terminate in the cabin.  Again, not attached to anything.

What I'd like to do over the next month or two is to rewire the entire boat.  It should have:

1) an LED cabin light - probably one is enough.  It's a pretty small cabin
2) an LED deck light.
3) running lights - again, I'd prefer LED because they have much less of a drain on the battery
4) LED Anchor light
5) Bilge pump (3 way switch on-off-auto controlled by the float switch)
6) Perhaps down the road, a depth finder

In order to support all of this, I would also like to possibly add another battery, and a solar panel that will go over the filled in hatch area on the front.

I think in order to do this, I'll move the battery closer to the wood panel that the steps are attached to.  From the battery, I'll run a wire from the positive to a master switch that will let me kill all power at once.  From the switch, I'll run to bus then break the bus out to fuses.  Apparently, the fuses should be rated to half the rating of the wiring that I use.  The total distance from the battery terminal to the fuses should be less then 7" ideally, but I'll try to keep it close.  From the fuses, I'll run it to the panel with the switches to turn everything off and on.  For the bilge, I'll likely use a three way toggle for Off/On/Auto (assuming my bilge has a float switch).

Perhaps something like this with the fuses and switches built in that I found at Steveston Marina

A good option at $50.  Comes with the fuses too.

Waterproof, but really expensive at $159.00 CAN

Eventually, I'd like to add a shore power option too.  We already have the extension cable.  I've picked up the book Don Casey "Sailboat Electrics Simplified", so we'll see how it goes.