With any new boat comes the process of familiarization with her systems. In this case the electrics are based on a distributed power system.

Engineer Ian installed the whole system (in fact all the mechanical systems in the boat) and he came on board yesterday. I got him to show me around the system a little. Ian does excellent work - he did all the mechanical and electrical work on the 42 as well.


The work he does is very well thought out and very neat and tidy. As I start installing a few things I will try to keep to his high standards.



One thing you see in this picture is just how “uncrowded” it is behind the main electrical panel. This is because the distributed electrical system means only items installed near this area will be wired to here. Other items will be connected to “nodes” near that part of the boat. There are nodes in the forward cabin, saloon, galley, nav station (shown here) and aft. There really is much less wiring this way. On the lower left of this picture there are 3 square black boxes. They are the circuit breakers feeding three nearby “nodes”. So each node is protected and can be isolated.

My next project is to get my head around the software that programs the nodes. I am planning a few small projects I can add to the system that will be simple examples I can practice with.