captvan
New Member
- Oct 15, 2023
- 4
- Boat Info
- 1991 Sea Ray 350 Sundancer, Twin 7.4
- Engines
- 454 Mercruiser inboard
I recently bought a 91 Sundancer 350 from a gentleman on Kent Island, MD. The wife & I ran the boat down to Little Creek Norfolk, VA and into her new home at Morningstar Marina. Morningstar has the newest shore power posts equipped with the latest GFCI breakers which are Very sensitive. Right away I had a problem. As with many mid-sized cabin boats mine has 2 30 amp 120v shore power receptacles which feed into separate breakers in the electrical panel. I knew a commercial electrician who has solved other tricky electrical issues on tugs I have run and called him. He charges $150/hr and has a 4 hr minimum. I told him I would be very happy to pay him $600 if he were to figure out the problem in 15 minutes. After the 1st 15 minutes we had the " AHA!" moment. The reverse polarity indicator lights on the electrical panel were wired across the neutral and ground. He removed these lights and the shore post breakers held - until we switched on ANY breaker in the panel. After six more hours of searching and testing and failing to find the source of the problem we examined another set of main breakers located below the main panel. On my boat there are shore power inlet recepticles on the stern as well as the port side of the boat. This other set of main breakers were there to choose from which location you can power the boat. These breakers ALSO had reverse polarity indicator lights as part of the breakers themselves. These indicator lights were also wired across both the neutral and ground. After disabling these lights the shore power GFCI bfreakers held just fine with everything turned on. During the process of finding my issue many of my new neighbors stopped by to commiserate with me and regailed me with their story of the long arduous process of finding the mysterious grounding issue on their boat. It cost me $1000 but I put that issue to rest.