Electrical Route Advise.

[John in CC]

I am putting a couple small speakers in the seat backs. I am trying to decide where to route the wires.

One option is to run the wires up high in the seat backs and through the cabin up high. The drawback would require a bit of cove trim to hide the wires that would be visible and covers up some fillet work I was kinda proud of. The advantage is that is is nice to keep the wires up high.

The second option is to run the wire down the inside of bulkhead 7 through the cockpit deck inside the seat back then route the wire under the floorboards. I have some nice waterproof "through-wall" connectors. The advantage is that is will look much nicer. The disadvantage is putting a hole in the deck and a little less direct route to my control panel.

I am leaning toward the second option unless someone talks me out of it.

[craig]

For some reason I'm having trouble understanding your second choice. The wire would go along the seat backs, then through the deck at bulkhead 7, then down the wall to the floorboards, then over to bulkhead 2. Why not just drop down at bulkhead 8? Go down the wall and to the floorboards. One thing I've noticed now that it's all together is that back in the recesses of the cabin at bulkhead 8, you can't really see anything. It's out of the way, dark, and cramped anyway if you wanted to crawl back there. So, a wire running down from the deck along the bulkhead/hull side fillet would be almost unnoticable. And as you said, you could put some cove trim or whatever to hide it further. My 2 cents

[DanaDCole]

Now that I realize floatation foam goes in the transom compartment I have no compunctions about drilling two holes for electrical conduit in bulkhead 8. I have already drilled a drain hole at the very bottom of BH8--pretty sure it was always intended to be there. The holes will be a little wider and higher up than the holes in the floor joists, just under the BH8 floor cleat. This will allow me to run flexible conduit all the way from the battery/storage compartment in front of the cuddy to the port and starboard top corners of the transom, where I'll mount some sort of DC outlets (some research needed here--have not found one with enough capacity). I'll be pulling 6 AWG wiring in both those conduits for two reasons: 1. The wire can carry up to 50 amps at that length, so just about anything I plug in back there in the future will be covered, and 2. to minimize voltage drop whatever the load. Actually there are more reasons: I'll have a hard enough time crimping lugs on 6 AWG wire and attaching the ends to whatever outlets I put back there, not sure I can pull any larger wire that distance in 3/4" flexible conduit, additional expense for capacity I will probably never need, the battery will probably much larger than I want at 50 amps for any appreciable amount of time.* (There are likely many more reasons I haven't thought of.)

*I'm fairly seriously considering a Minn Kota 30 or 40-pound-thrust transom-mount trolling motor ($220.00 vs. $1000 to $2000 for Lehr propane or Torqueedo electric). These motors draw about 30 to 40 amps max, but I think most of the time they would only be drawing about 10 to 15 amps and I wouldn't be using the motor all that much, so I believe a battery that can handle this would not be too huge. More research to do.