Unwired

Spending a few days on the boat affords us time to start poking around in cubby holes…and tracing wires that are not labeled…and pulling those wires out to find….they are not attached to anything!

Back in the spring, we installed new NKE instrumentation and autopilot on Shearwater – the installation went reasonably well, although there was the typical troubleshooting as we learned how the system worked.  We decided at the time not to remove the old Autohelm ST80 instruments and autopilot, just in case we might need to get it working in a pinch.

However, after finding some wires leading to nowhere, we decided this weekend that since we had not ever been able to get the old system working that everything associated with it had to go.

This is just the beginning…

Understandably, technology has changed a lot, but that old system seemed to be assimilating Shearwater into the Borg.  It turns out that the old instruments and autopilot set-up used enough wire to power the local town here – wires kept coming and coming.  We unearthed other wires to nowhere, too, that probably dated back to the original owner (we are owners #3).

Our efforts resulted in a lighter boat (all that wire, plus compass housing and bus housing that seemed like it contained lead weighed a ton!), and more importantly, a much neater space behind our electrical panel and under our quarter berth.

Step 1 of our electrical rewire project – getting UNWIRED – complete!