Bow light rewiring

[Mike_Carroll]

Before I run a wire outside of the bow pulpit to rewire the bow nav light on my 33, does anyone wise advice on another way? The wire through the pulpit will not budge allowing a new wire to be threaded through.

[moctrams]

Look up in the chain lockers to see if the wires are "tied off" so as not to move. Cut the wires in the chain locker, attach a "pull tape" and pull.

[tjr818]

I have seen some remarkable things done with a small piece of cotton ball on the end of a piece of string. A blast of air will turn the pulpit tubing into a makeshift blowgun. The cotton ball has no way out except the hole at the other end.

[bottomscraper]

Have you removed the pulpit? On Mahalo the bottom end of the wire had a knot in the wire that prevented the wire from pulling down through the deck. Getting the pulpit off wasn't much fun. I'm not sure how the 33 differs from the 36.

[Maine_Buzzard]

Cut off the wires where they go up through the deck and push them into the pulpit, forever consinging them to a stainless prison... I use an older piece of lifeline cable to fish through openings, as it's just stiff enough to push through, and will go around corners well. Too cheap for fish tape...

If you switch to LED lights, you can use 20AWG wire from the light to under the deck. much easier to pull through. Did this in the stern pulpit and will repeat for the bow soon.

[Steve Laume]

My bow light wire was also very hard to pull out. The problem was whatever goo they used to bed the pulpit. The stuff had a death grip on the wire. I freed it by poking sharp objects up into the hole all around the wire. Once it is free don't pull on it until you splice your new wire to it. It is then a simple matter of pulling the old wire out along with the new wire in, so to speak.

I do have an LED bulb in my bow light but chose to go with heavier wire. I know the LED would only require 20 Ga but that little wire is pretty fragile. By maintaining the heavier wire I can still run an incandescent spare bulb if something should happen to my LED. If you do go with a 20 Ga wire you should probably not be using the standard 15 Amp breaker as the wire would become the weak link. For my LED tricolor I use 5 Amp breakers.

This is a good time to be taking on this project. I did mine while off cruising in Maine a few years ago, Steve.

[Keith]

I have the port/starboard lights on the deck mounted on teak blocks on my 1980 CD 30C. It looks like factory from the original launch pictures that I have. I want to put a combo light on the bow pulpit. Looking for recommendation on manufacturer.