boat lighting with 1 wire

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cntryislandboy

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i was just looking over the wiring of the boat i just bought and to my suprise the bow lights 1 on each side just had 1 wire coming out of them, then they are joined into 1 wire on the right side of the boat, and ran all the way to the back, the lights on the inside of the boat are the same way. now granite i am no electrician but this is something i have never seen, is this normal for boats to be wired this way. i'll try to post some pics explaining what i mean when i get home this evening.
 
i am sure it is just one wire, i can't believe i never thought that maybe they are using the boat as a ground, that would make running the wire a little easier.
 
cntryislandboy said:
i am sure it is just one wire, i can't believe i never thought that maybe they are using the boat as a ground, that would make running the wire a little easier.


Yeah - but and this is a big BUTT you can cause all sorts of other problems as boats are in water and water and electric. . . . .


Do you hook your battery to a wire that grounds to the boat?
 
If your battery is grounded to the hull you will have major problems; from pitting the hull to pitting the gears on the motor and weird stray voltages on all kinds of things. You really ned to run a separate wire for negative all the way to the battery.
 
If it has only one wire your boat is the ground(-) and that is not good fix it.....

Trust me as i am a sparky of 23 yrs.
 
thank guys for all the things to check, haven't had change to check yet just got home from work, however i do plan on stripping the boat and starting over that way i know what is what and there will be no mistakes, not to mention i don't mind spending the few extra bucks to re-run the wire to get a good piece of mind and could save me money in the long run
 

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