ed’s boat tips

I spent a bit of time over the past weekend looking over some of the many photos I take whenever I serve as a Boat Of The Year judge for Cruising World Magazine. Sometimes I wonder why I take the hundreds of photos I always manage to shoot during our boat inspections. Primarily the photos I take are to either illustrate really good and innovative things I see being done with on board systems installations; or, sometimes the photos are to illustrate things that absolutely drive me crazy when …

If your boat has any through hull fittings below the boat’s static waterline, and it most probably does, then you also will have some anti-siphon valves like the one shown here installed:

Making the Switch: Converting to electric propulsion

Since I talk a lot on this site about messy wiring and what to do and what not to do, it occured to me that pictures can indeed say a thousand words.. One of the common questions I get goes something like this: “Hey Ed, you are always talking about workmanship and carefully crafted wiring installations. OK, what’s the difference?”

Well it must be “how to” season as I’m starting to hear from many of our readers and they have a broad range of questions from the complex, to the seemingly simple. A few day’s ago a fellow named Ed sent us a query that seems pretty simple. Here it is: “hi Ed- i have to add lights and a radio to my boat. i have the switch and fuse box but i dont know about the neg and the ground wire connection.”

Basic Lightning Protection System as per ABYC TE-4

Ed’s Battery Tester I received a nice email from one of my favorite students yesterday asking what my thoughts were on the state of the art in battery testing. I always love hearing from former students and knowing that things are going well, and of course I’m happy to know she’s found www.edsboattips.com

Electrical current that is.

SAE Type B Thermal Circuit Breaker Today’s post came in as a question from one of our readers. Its a really good question, so let me share: