Shorepower Connector @ Boat - Mark I

[kurt]

Hello everyone,

A shorepower tale especially for Mk1 owners...

Recently had an intermittent connection on my shorepower connection on my '88 Mk I.  I thought it was at the cord to connector so fiddled with it and all was well.    Recently showed up to my boat with batteries @ zero, discovered lack of shorepower, and then had to diagnose. Quickly discovered the cord side female connector and the male receptacle on the boat both were literally toasted - attributed the cycling of a 5-10 amp heater on and off repeatably as the straw that broke the camels back.    Fortunate the toasting was isolated to plug and receptacle to say the least.

Proceeded to remove the male connector from the boat and noticed that over the years the white wire appears to have become marginal and ultimately just fried itself free (see above) from the plug thus breaking the circuit.

Ordered a new screw for screw compatible Hubbel stainless replacement receptacle from Amazon for ~$80 and rewired the shorepower and all is good as new. (Looked at the newer technologies for shorepower but didn't want to drill new holes.)  The new hubble connector did have a better design including strain relief vs. the '88 version of the connector.  Not a difficult job at all but I'm a bit oversized for the lazerette...

Learnings:

1) It is very easy to stick your head in the lazerette to check out the state of the terminals on the back end of your shorepower receptacle.
2)  It is very easy to replace the receptacle at nominal cost if connections look less than good/great.
3)  It is easier to do 1) and 2) above than have my experience IMO.

[Ken Juul]

Good explaination of your shore power problem.  What caused your batteries to go to zero?

[kurt]

The fridge... 

[Ralph Masters]

This looks like yet another item to put on the "To Do" list, the ever increasing to do list I might add.

Ralph

[Ron Hill]

I'm sure that the "food stuffs" cooling in the fridge had a much greater cost than the batteries that just went flat!?! 

[efhughes3]

This looks like yet another item to put on the "To Do" list, the ever increasing to do list I might add.

Ralph

You and me both Ralph....but I clicked a few off last weekend.

This electrical issue reminds me of sometime late in 1995-I had my Hunter in S. San Fran and was staying on the boat one night when there was a hellacious storm that blew thru the Bay Area. At least a dozen furled headsails in the marina blew out that night. I tried to save some of them, but it was an ugly night. A large swath of trees was felled on Angel Island too. I think there were reports of local gusts north of 75mph. I remember driving thru the city the next morning to Santa Rosa, and it looked like a riot occurred the night before. Really weird, and probably the longest night of my life, except for the one sailing around Pt Conception. At any rate, the rain got driven into my shorepower connection, which was on a 6 month old boat and a 6 month old power cord-that had the retaining ring screwed in. The receptacle had nasty arc marks from a short from water being literally driven into the plug, that looked as if someone had laid a wire across the two main legs-burned about 6" of wire behind the receptacle as well. I guess the moral here is that the 30amp juice has a bit of oomph behind it, and regular inspection of the equipment is warranted.

This just got on my to do list, as well.

[Les Luzar]

Ed,
You live in San Diego, you don't have to worry about that much rain!  I have seen a number of headsails ruined during storms however, that is why I keep mine tightly wound, with at least three or four wrappings of the sheet lines, and then cinched off on my winches. This so far, (fingers crossed) has spared me the expense of replacing my head sail.

[chuck53]

Not trying to hijack this thread...
I'm also going to replace my boat side male connector this spring as well.  Even though I haven't checked it out yet, I assumed it would not be a difficult job to do.
However, I'm thinking if I'm going to replace my plug, maybe I should replace the power cord running from the plug to the circuit breaker board.  My boat is 25 years old and maybe it's time.
So how difficult will it be to replace the cord as well?

[Ted Pounds]

As long as that line is tinned, marine-grade AC wire (and I believe that's what Catalina used) it should be fine and will never wear out.  The only place you might see a problem is where it connects to the shorepower plug.  If see any signs of arcing or corrosion there then you'll need to replace the wire.