GroupWBench

So I go up the mast to install the final light to complete the whole rewiring job. I'd built a little stand out of aluminum tubes for the new light so that it will be as tall as the old one and stand up over the sheaves for the halyards. Like a smart guy, I bring my voltage tester up with me so I can be sure I'm getting twelve volts to the light before I go through the effort of connecting everything and mounting the new light. 

That's where I ran into my first issue. I found three wires coming out of the mast. Two reds and a black. Hmm, okay my voltage tester will tell me what is what. I connect to a red and black. Nothing. I connect to the other red and the black. Still nothing. By now my harness is making my dangly bits whimper in pain, there is just enough rocking to smack me into the mast a little and I hang there confused. I replaced every electrical wire on that boat save two. One to the steaming light, which worked perfectly, and the one to the anchor light. These were up the mast and I doubted I could snake new wires between the walls, up the mast support, through the deck,  into the mast, and then all the way up. Now I find that the anchor light shows no juice. The breaker is on and I have no juice. I slither down the mast in defeat.

That was a week ago. Today we went into the bowels of the boat and traced the wire from the back of the breaker to the point it goes into the wall under the mast. It looked good, so I get my voltage tester and start testing. I start at the back of the panel. The switch is on and…nothing. So maybe the switch is bad. So I test the cabin lights switch…nothing. I test a couple of other switches…still nothing. So I put the tester on the batteries that I know are good…still nothing. Then Ivy says does that thing have a battery in it? The light in my head comes on! Maybe the tester batteries are dead. I open it up to find battery goop all over. The batteries ate the tester. Our spare batteries are bad, too. Ivy make a fetch it run for AA batteries. While she is gone, I realize that I don't need to cut the wire to test it before it goes up the mast. I need to start all over with a good tester at the top of the mast. Sigh. Had I just been stupid and wired up the light and mounted it without testing it I might have not had to go through the gyration I did today.  

While Ivy was gone, I was speaking with the diver that cleans boats here. The zebra mussels grow fast here and bottom nooks and crannies need cleaning regularly. When I signed up for the service, he asked for the boat name. I said we don't have a name on it, but that I call it a lot of things…most of them probably don't need to be printed on the boat.