Here is an very interesting and sensible idea that I have seen on few boats but it would not be a bad idea to include on many more. What we are looking at is the main battery isolator switches and circuit breakers which are all neat and tidy but what is really interesting is the red and black covered battery terminal posts to the right of the picture. What these are for is to enable the operator of the boat to jump the engine start battery with a suitable spare battery or jumper pack should the main battery be flat and the engine will not start. All connections inside a gasoline powered engine room must be ignition protected or in other words there must be nothing that will produce a spark that could ignite gasoline fumes. But all that goes out the window if and owner simply opens up the engine compartment and connects a set of jumper leads to the engine start battery. It is basically impossible to connect up a set of jump leads and not produce some sparking, not a big deal under the hood of the truck but in the confined space of a boats engine room could be disastrous, thus all that is avoided with these senisble connections. Unfortunately we shall never know just how deadly jumping the batteries in the engine room can be because many of those boat owners who have used the technique are probably singing to the choir now at the great marina in the sky.
It is therefore somewhat paradoxical that on this same boat where there have done something very sensible they have also done something very stupid; I find a cut out above the fuel tank neatly covered by a lift out panel to offer access to the sender unit. This is all fine and good but the balsa coring is completely exposed. Now sure, this was below decks and I am sure that the manufacturer would argue that it is not going to get wet but my counter to that is that everything on a boat is going to get wet at some time. I would not have been that complicated or taken that much time to reef out some of the core, back to say a half inch or so and back fill it with thickened epoxy then there is no way that any moisture could get into the core and start rot. What is almost more troubling is what other places is the core exposed in areas that it is impossible to see or get to.
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