When we bought the boat there were many things on our list of “things to do - urgent”, and right at the very top was one word - “wiring”. Around thirteen or fourteen or maybe more years ago, we spent a considerable time making things safe and mostly foolproof but didn't quite get finished, and that work has haunted us ever since.
Tucked behind the dashboard neatly out of site is a rat’s nest of cables, faulty connections, old zinc fuses on the point of failure and cracked insulation, but by the time we’d finished the rest of the job, we just couldn’t face it, so we screwed the covers back on and apart from the occasional revisit from time to time, left well enough alone, convincing ourselves that if it wasn’t broken it didn’t need fixing.
Unfortunately the failure rate of some of those corrodes switches and fatigued cables has become such over recent years, that it’s really at the point where something should be done.
Even today, while trial fitting the new dashboard, those cables just squirmed and hissed and looked threateningly my way as if to warn me not to dare touch them, but touch we must.
I have spent hours in the past trying to come up with a logical way of attacking this problem, and the only one that makes sense is to cut them all off and start again, which I hasten to add requires knowledge that is a terrifyingly large distant galaxy away from my skillset.
Having spent what may well be the nicest summer day Belgium has ever experienced upside down with my head in a cable duct, and the boat in a shed, it’s time as they say, to pee, or get off the pot.
Of course a sensible person would wait to do that until next week when the blackwater tank is connected. That would prevent embarrassing puddles appearing on the shed floor beneath the boat.
On the other hand Paris does sound nice…
1 comment
Oh dear. That would be my worst. Your wiring looks like my brain when I even think of wiring!
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