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Thread: Another Dura Mater Question

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Montara, CA
    Posts
    803

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    Way to go, Jackie and Tom! That feeling after a successful, well-done project is just so satisfying. I can hear it in your post. Also the nice thing about white-jacketed duplex wire is that you can write "VHF" in sharpie from one end to the other so you won't have to go tracing odd colored wires again inside a stuffy lazarette. I'd try to hail you on Sunday if I were going to be on my boat. Have a GREAT time Can't wait to read your trip report.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Santa Rosa
    Posts
    644

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    Jackie, Now that you're a certified boat electrician (you do have a new certificate to frame and put with all your degrees and other honors, don't you), here's a suggestion. That wonky wire with various sections hooked together you found is indicative an an old boat. And DM is an old boat. There are probably other such wires stretching from bow to stern and all places in-between. You may not always need your cabin lights, nor entertainment system to work, but running lights are not in that category. Doesn't need to be done at once, but ensuring the system feeding the running lights is as perfect as possible is good insurance against flipping that switch and not seeing red, green, white. The feeds to the compass light and other instruments are equally important. Don't forget the bilge pump and its float switch.

    I can tell you a story about night after night sailing to Hawaii holding a flashlight at an angle so the helmsman could see the compass. Or about removing a navigation light lens and holding a flashlight behind it as I finished a night race that required running lights to avoid a DSQ.

    What I've done with my older boats (my Tuna was older than your Cal, my Newport 30 about the same age) is to draw a schematic diagram (think London Tube map) of all the wiring systems. Then set up a replacement schedule and work my way through all the circuits with new wire and connections (if necessary). A solid run of wire from the switch to the lighter other device, is about as close to a guarantee as you can get. Time and money, but it's a boat and you bought into the equation. -- Pat

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Posts
    49

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    Reminds me of my boat, about the same vintage. New wiring to the stern light. New until the last three feet, that is, when there were three different wires soldered together. I guess they ran out of the new wire at this point. At some point (in time) the stern light failed.... Cheers Jan

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    3,688

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    Yogi Berra, Herb Caen and John Fogerty all agree, "It's like déjà vu all over again."

    https://www.sfbaysss.org/forum/showt...1869#post11869

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    3,485

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    Quote Originally Posted by BobJ View Post
    Yogi Berra, Herb Caen and John Fogerty all agree, "It's like déjà vu all over again."

    https://www.sfbaysss.org/forum/showt...1869#post11869
    THAT is a riot!

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