Getting Started

[andrewaia]

So this is it, I begin my work to get my Cape Dory in the water, and of course this is my first cabin style cruiser, so I need some help with a couple of things that need to happen before I get her in, amongst a myriad of cosmetic work, I would like to get the lights working I am assuming there should be wire within the mast, secondly the head and water system, it appears there is a bladder in my system, is this typical, and how difficult is it to repair the head , I don't even know if it works since the previous owner had no interest in the head or the lights. I traded my Rhodes 19 (restored) for a CD 25 which needs some work, but it seems manageable. So I will be asking for help on occasion thank you in advance for any responses. Andrew

[Steve Laume]

Congratulations! It is pretty cool when you can find a trade that makes both parties happy.

Lights are good. Do you have a mast head set up or are you only concerned with a steaming light? Any mast wiring would be much easier to deal with if the mast is down. Most of the time it is not a wiring problem at all. Connections tend to corrode and that would be pretty easy to deal with.

Get yourself a volt meter to see where the power stops. Some Scotchbright to clean contacts and a spare bulb which is good to have anyway. Chances are that is all you will need to fix your lights.

Good luck with the head.

Seriously, if it has been neglected, is original and one of the old Grocos that needs rebuilding, you might be way ahead of the game to replace it. I arrived at that point the long way around.

Have yourself some fun making her proud. It is great to know another Cape Dory is in the hands of someone who cares and is apt to restore her to her former glory.

Don't get too caught up in making her beautiful to the point of not sailing her. There is always next year to work on her. You only get so many years to sail. It seems like there are always plenty of years to work, Steve.

[andrewaia]

Yes, the mast is down and hopefully when I remove the base plate the wires are there, lights are on the mast, the top and middle.
I looked at the prices for a new head and thought for the price a replacement might be in order, thanks for the advice.

They had removed all the old instruments,( I have them but they look inoperable) and the wiring is a bit of a mess, nothing my dad and I can't handle. I thought a nice gps sonar unit might be all I will install at this point.

Yes, I understand I am phasing the work so I can get in the water!
This year I plan to fix the head make new cushion covers, hopefully there is a pattern out there, get the lights working, do the wood work, hasn't been done in so long at some point I will need to replace some teak, and maybe work on the fiberglass there are some repairs needed on the cockpit seats. The manual bilge pump is working and the bottom is not that bad, but I would like to re paint at some point.

[Carl Thunberg]

Andrew,

Congratulations on your trade. Having owned both of those boats (actually a Rhodes 18), I think you've made a good decision in the long run even though you're starting over with a restoration. It sounds like you're up to the task. You said there's wiring at the top of the mast. I assume this is for a masthead anchor light??? FYI - The original CD25s off the factory line did not come with a masthead anchor light, so this is a P.O. modification. My only immediate suggestion is to remove the masthead fitting while the mast is down, so you can inspect how the P.O. supported the wire. I've actually seen a masthead anchor light installation where the wire in the mast was hanging directly off the pigtail wires coming off the back of the light, with no other support. Not good. It's worth at least looking to make sure the job was done right. And while you have the masthead fitting off, you might as well lubricate the sheave blocks while you're there.

[andrewaia]

I was at the boat last night measuring for cockpit cushions and noticed on the typhoon mast behind my boat there is a plug that comes out the bottom of the mast and looked at mine and there is nothing, but I do have the holes. I am hoping there is wire in there, I will find out this weekend. I see some plugs near the mast head light on the outside of the mast but I am not sure what they are for, there is an antenae there as well. I will remove the mast head and inspect and thanks for the advice I will lubricate as well. Right now I need to do wood work, it is bad and I have a piece missing on the rub rail about a six inches, there is only one screw in that section do I need to remove more to make the fix so more than one screw is holding the piece, and then there is the two holes in my cockpit seats, never have done fiberglass/core work but I need to now. The one is in the middle of the seat, it will be easier, the one on the edge of the seat next to a storage well will be more difficult. What is the core material?

[andrewaia]

Well so much for the easy fix....the wiring in the mast was replaced at some point with telephone wiring small ga. and cracking shielding so wire replacement is in order. Do I need to run two wires for the anchor light and running light or can I run 1 wire and connect them both? That is my question of the day...

On a good note the head still works! Just have to replace the supply hose they had used the thin bilge hose with no connectors.

[Carl Thunberg]

I'll pick this one up. Telephone wire? You gotta be kidding. Be very wary of the previous owner's work. Not only did he or she not know what they were doing, but they didn't bother to do any research to find out what the correct materials should be. The fact that they ran thin bilge pump hose from the seacock to the head with no hose clamps should scare you. This is below the water line and can sink your boat.

For starters, you'll want to search the archives for the topic "Mast Wiring". You'll find we've kicked this topic around a bit, but I'm not sure we've covered the topic of how many wires to run up the mast. I think you'll need a total of three wires in your mast. One is for your VHF radio antenna. One three-wire cable will be wired to your combination steaming/foredeck light fixture at the spreaders. They will share a common negative wire and each of the two positive wires will be wired to a separate switch on your panel, so you can control them individually. The third and final wire will be a two strand wire that goes up to the masthead for your anchor light. In theory, you could run a single four-strand wire that could run your masthead anchor light and your combination steaming/deck light at the spreaders, but practically, I don't know how you could physically do it. This is why I was hoping someone with specific wiring expertise would pick up this topic.

There's been some good discussion in the archives about how to keep the wires from slapping the inside of the mast. For what it's worth, on my boat I have the foam plugs. If you do use the foam plug method, just make certain you've run all the wires up the mast that you'll ever need (i.e. future radar dome, spreader lights, wind anemometer, etc.). I'm not advocating for any of these, but just think it through.

[andrewaia]

Thanks for the wiring help I will search the boards, I ran the mast wire in the Rhodes, so with a little guidance I can do this as well. The puzzling part, but maybe it is just common sense until I can test, I am assuming the 2 pairs of what appears to be original wiring red and black coming thru the cabin roof will be the connections to the two mast lights, all the other wire in the mast is garbage.

I couldnt believe the head situation, its a good thing the previous owner never used it (sea cock closed), he would have come to the dock one day and it would have been under water.

All the remaining thru hull valves look good and have the right heavy duty hose and connections. The garden hose (literally) and loose fitting for the internal water storage tank all need to be changed, but thats easy.

[Oswego John]

The puzzling part, but maybe it is just common sense until I can test, I am assuming the 2 pairs of what appears to be original wiring red and black coming thru the cabin roof will be the connections to the two mast lights, all the other wire in the mast is garbage.

I don't know if all the other wires are garbage. They must have been installed for some reason. You should take stock on how many light systems you have above. With additional circuits, or the same fused circuit being controlled by separate switches, you will have a choice of which lights will be on or off at any given time.

BTW, one of the older standards of DC wiring uses the red jacketed wire as the positive or hot feed wire. The black wire is the negative return wire of the circuit. The switch should make or break the red hot wire.

I guess that I'll raise the ire of some with mentioning the following term. There is a saying in the trade, undeservedly so, that when someone cuts corners with material and labor for the sake of more profit, that it is a "Bronx Job". Hey, sorry, that's what they call it.

When doing wiring, a mast for instance, and using one negative conductor to serve many separate circuits or switch loads, this might come under the term of being a Bronx Job.

Let me give an overly exaggerated example to explain my point. For the sake of argument, let us assume that there are five separate devices located on the mast. Again, let us assume (there's that evil word again) that each device or light consumes five amps. Having five amps across an acceptable wiring conductor is no problem. (not withstanding using telephone conductors.)

The problem with using one negative return wire for five systems, each drawing five amps means that the return has a potential of carrying twenty five amps. The mast wiring is the longest distance of any part of the boat, considering the distance up, added to the distance down from the battery through the loads and return to the battery. Voltage drop through resistance is an important consideration when designing adequate marine wiring.

Personally, I like to use several returns rather than one or two. In the example above, if you lost your return, you lost everything. I have used three wire cable many times, it is practical to use for some installations. I like to use separate two wire cables for mast head lighting, also for deck lighting fron spreaders. To me, it is just practical to have all leads end in one place. It also facilitates trouble shooting from below when all the leads are at hand at deck level.

I suppose that I should mention that with the new modern LCD lighting systems, overloading a conductor isn't the problem it once had been.

$.02 for now
O J
P.S. Megapologies to those reading this who come from the Bronx.

[andrewaia]

Thanks John for the advice, after looking into all that you mention, I am planning on running 2 two wire cables in the mast to cover my lighting, I suppose I can step the mast if I wish to add more, but the wind instruments that came with the boat are not installed and appear to have lived a hard life....I am assuming they pulled them out after they started malfunctioning, I again am assuming that is when the wiring in the mast started to fail. It was not physically up to the task too light of ga. and the wrong shielding for the conditions on the water. So what is left is the coaxial cable for the antenna which I haven't tested as of yet but I think it is intact, at least all the connectors are there.

I do want to run LCD lights as they are much more efficient. Thanks for the dialog, I find it very helpful.

[mattlydon]

I very strongly recommend you purchase Don Casey's "this old boat", 2nd edition, and/or " the sailboat owner's maintenance manual"

They are invaluable for detailed advise on all aspects of fixing up your boat.


http://www.amazon.com/Caseys-Complete-I ... 128&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/This-Old-Boat-Sec ... 128&sr=8-3

Matt

[KDreese]

I agree about getting Don Casey's books. They are a great help and fun to read. Also, make sure to get the lastest version of "Good Old Boat" that was just released in April. It is MUCH improved, in my opinion,over the original.

[Tom in Cambria]

Concerning Oswego Johns post about wiring, I asked an electrician about this that I happened to run into on a job today. I know that a lot of boats use a single neutral/ground wire for a return to all the lights. This guy is not a boat electrician, but a house electrician. He said that you don't have the same amps on the neutral side as you do on the positive side. If you put an ammeter on each leg, the positive side will show many more amps than the neutral or ground side. He didn't think there would be a problem using a single return line when the lights are wired in parallel rather than series. FWIW. I'm not an electrician and don't know for sure. You know that the watts divided by the volts gives you the amps. So a 35 watt bulb in our 12 volt systems will give you a draw of about 3 amps. LED lights don't even draw a watt, so divided by 12 there is hardly any amp draw. If I'm wrong some electrician will come on line and straighten me out, but that's what I understand.

BTW if you're going to wire a mast I would only use Anchor pre-tinned wire. It doesn't corrode and re-doing the mast wires is a challenge. Slapping wires inside the mast will keep you up at night except in the quietest anchorages. I'm not sure about the 25, but a cutter rig often has internal halyards on the staysail. This make foam fill not a good solution. What I did on my 31 was run a PVC pipe up the inside of the mast. It's attached to the mast with pop rivets which are aluminum, of course, so there is no electrolysis with the fasteners. You start at one end and put a pop rivet in and then another one every foot or 18 inches. I can't remember how close I did it now, but as you go it holds the pipe up for the next rivet. The rivet heads are almost flush so you have to look to even see them. Some say you should always put an extra wire in for that thing that you may want to put in some day but haven't thought of yet, such as a masthead tri-color or strobe.

When I did mine I put in one of those 5 way pre-tinned wires that you can see on page 430 in the 2008 West catalog. Black was neutral/ground the other lights all had a dedicated color. Blue went to the deck light, green to the steaming light, red to the anchor light, etc. They all come to a terminal block in the well at the base of the mast. That way you can disconnect them when you want to pull the mast. And if you ever need to check wiring you can hook up a 12 volt battery to the wires at the terminal block and check each circuit.

It's worked flawlessly for over 15 years and I've never blown a circuit breaker from overload on a circuit. Especially if you're using LED lights I don't think you need to worry about overload, their draw is minuscule.

[BillNH]

Concerning Oswego Johns post about wiring, I asked an electrician about this that I happened to run into on a job today. I know that a lot of boats use a single neutral/ground wire for a return to all the lights. This guy is not a boat electrician, but a house electrician. He said that you don't have the same amps on the neutral side as you do on the positive side. If you put an ammeter on each leg, the positive side will show many more amps than the neutral or ground side. He didn't think there would be a problem using a single return line when the lights are wired in parallel rather than series. FWIW.

Not going into AC home wiring here, but in a DC system like our CDs have, whatever current goes up the positive wire has to come back down a ground. A common ground WILL carry the sum of all the currents as OJ correctly points out.

However, lighting is relatively low draw anyways, even if incandescent, as far as voltage drop is concerned. If you size the wire correctly from the start voltage drop should not be a significant problem. If you want to turn your spreader (foredeck) light on while you have your steaming light on, you might experience a slight voltage drop and consequent slight dimming of both lights. However that voltage drop should be way less than you experience when you shut down an engine (with the alternator charging) and begin operating on just batteries. If this dimming isn't noticeable to you, then you won't notice the dimming from a common ground induced voltage drop either.

As you get more lights, etc on the mast that "could" be run simultaneously, remember that most of them should not be used together. For example, a masthead tricolor and a steaming light are not a legal combination when under power. I can't figure when you'd use an anchor light and a steaming light together, or even a tricolor and anchor light combo.

My preference has always been to use a suitably sized wire with common ground for things that end in the same place. (A foredeck light/steaming light combo just above the spreaders, for example) but to make separate runs to different locations on the mast. This avoids having an inaccessable connection where you tie into the ground wire partway up the mast, and places all connections at the bottom and at the respective units...

[Steve Laume]

It's worked flawlessly for over 15 years and I've never blown a circuit breaker from overload on a circuit.

Would a circuit breaker trip if the negative wire was overloaded but not shorted out? My understanding is that if a wire is sized smaller that the appropriate circuit breaker, the wire becomes the weak point and it heats up and possibly melts before the breaker trips.

Fuses are really nothing more than the weak link of a circuit housed in a convenient and safe place designed to melt down when the loads get to high.

Or you could use phone wire, Steve.