AC plugs don't assume

[wavpower]

Going through the AC on my 1980 Defever 49 RPH checked the AC plug in the pilot house. One should never assume anything. The boat's AC plugs are wired with red hot, black neutral and white ground.

With the dock AC being updated many boats will trip the shore breaker and you will not be able to plug in.
Chuck

 

[diver dave]

Certainly a NEC code violation in North America. But, so far, this is a color issue, not necessarily a connection issue. For instance, is the white wire connected at the far end to the ship's ground bus?

fyi, flammable material (wood) is also a violation, if it prevents the otherwise flame resistant box from becoming flush with the front surface.

 

[Comodave]

My friends boat would trip the dock breakers due to ground faults. Trojan used a household Square D breaker box when the boat was built. That was ok but very confusing to work on. The hot bus bars supplied power to the breakers in a zig zag pattern. The two columns of breakers do not correlate to shore power 1 and 2. But we found 4 problems that were causing the dock GFIs to trip. 1. All the neutrals were on one bus. 2. The water heater had an internal short from neutral to ground. 3. The two shore power voltage meters were daisy chained on the neutrals. 4. The PO had replaced an outlet and reversed the neutral and ground wires on the outlet.

He said the one time he was in the water between the boat and the dock while working on the dock that his muscles locked up. He was lucky that the water was not that deep and he was standing on the bottom so he did not drown. After we fixed those 4 issues he was able to plug into a GFI dock without any problems.