American Boat & Yacht Council (ABYC) electrical standards call for 12volt positive + feeds to use red cable and negative returns – to use yellow. That’s what’s inside the 500′ spool of 12AWG we saw a few posts back. With the right ‘terminators’ in hand (the rings MUST be sized to fit the bolts they slip over, and we have 5 different bolt sizes in the system!), we attacked the panel on Thursday night. Here is 7:30pm

And 10:30pm…

Then after another hour Friday eve of clipping the casings, adding zip ties and aligning the bundle for door swing

The board glued inside that cabinet today will get a distributor block for all things in the nav station, plus the panel feed cable shunt (which provides the ammeter reading). Last night we also cut the big 2AWG battery cables to feed the panel and return to the batteries, service the main fuse and the windlass needs. Altogether it’s about two dozen lugs that need heavy duty crimpers which we’ll try to rent or borrow. We’ll show you all the primary feed wiring once those lugs are solved.

Returning from an East Bay business meeting, I was fortunate to catch Bay Area Multihull Association veteran Bill Roberts at his amazing new boat that just arrived in Richmond.

Bill has a great story finding this barely-used but INCREDIBLY outfitted luxury performance Dragonfly 1200 tri in Canada thru Gary Helm’s brokerage. The quality of the Quoring group’s fit and finish looks superb, and the Roberts family gets to enjoy high end carpentry, still-unused appliances and bunks, forced air furnace, etc. (did you catch the bow thruster?) Bill and the Bay Marine staff will hustle to step the 65′ (!!!) mast, lace the nets, and bring all systems out of winterized mode in time for Three Bridge Fiasco day. BAMA folks, it’ll be hard to miss this blue beauty out there. For me it’s fascinating to look at the different design approaches: this 1200 looks like it will power through any seas with authority, sailing fast and carrying a sense of beefy security (big Volvo 4cyl diesel, substantial SS fittings, etc). Our F36 is the same length and a bit wider, but only 40% of the total weight, “Spartanly” finished and a 15′ shorter rig. Should be very interesting to sail and cruise these two side by side.

Ok, back to the wiring tools for a rainy NorCal weekend.