Wire me up!

What better to do with a winter Sunday afternoon than to wire up some breaker panels?  While this project is not entirely finished, it is much farther along after this morning's couch session!  One of the things that made this project take a while is that all of the connections have to be shrink wrapped to prevent corrosion.  The connectors I got are specifically for marine applications.  They not only are shrink wrap, but they also have a heat activated glue that seals the connections when the shrink wrap is sealed.

After sealing the wires, I had to connect the wires for the two breaker panels to a common point.  This makes hooking up the batteries easier.  It also allows for more expansion of the electrical system should I, or someone else down the road, want to add more features/tech gadgets.  By putting the whole setup on a hinged door, access to the whole system is easier as well.  This should make for a much more user friendly system.

Something else I am working on is a main sheet recovery system for the boat.  I am a pretty big guy at 6 foot tall and about 215 lbs.  While I am a competent sailor, accidents happen.  I am very much hoping to teach my girlfriend to sail this summer, and to be able to continue to go sailing together well into the future.  The recovery system idea is based on the idea that I knock myself out and go in the water.  There is no way that Jenny could pull me out of the water on her own.  With the main sheet block and tackle system set up at 6:1 ratio, hauling my ass out of the water would not be too difficult.  To accomplish this, I have a bronze quick release on the bottom of the block that could be released to allow the boom to be swung over the side and lowered to clip onto my PFD or have a sling already attached.  With the cam cleat attached to the block system, hauling on the line from deck will automatically feed the line through the cam cleat, and prevent me (or whatever is being hauled on deck) from falling back into the water if the hauler looses their grip on the line.  While I still have a few kinks to work out of the system, this is the first step towards that end goal.