With the San Juan trip coming up next year, people who normally don't boat where they can get shore power from a marina may want to insure that the shore power cord on their boat really has a proper shore power connector. On my last trip, I thought mine did, but it turned out it did not.
I have been looking on the internet trying to identify just what the proper connectors are. From what I see, it looks like one might find 20A, 30A, or 50A shore power outlets. Here is a circular from the USCG which describes these connectors. All of these connectors are of the twist-lock variety, none have flat blade connectors. Note that the 20A and 30A connectors are NEMA L5, for example the 30A connector is NEMA L5-30. There exists a NEMA L6-30 connector, which I think I had installed on my damaged shore power cord, which is very similar, but rated for 250 VAC use instead of 125 VAC. The L6 plug won't plug into an L5 receptacle, I found.:smt009
While it is possible to replace the end on a shore power cable, I doubt that one can ever get the waterproof seal that you get with a molded factory cable. For that reason, I ended up buying another shore power cable instead of another connector. The price difference was minimal.
Once you know that you have the proper shore power cable for your boat, then the issue may arise where you have a 30A shore power cord, and the marina has only 20A or 50A shore power. I don't know if we might encounter that on the trip, but if so, an adapter would be required to connect to shore power. The adapter should be of the same high quality as the shore power cord itself. Marinco is a common supplier of these items. I am not suggesting here it is proper to connect your 30A shore power cord to a 50A source, but I suspect you can buy a connector to do just that. I don't have one.
Corrections welcome.
I have been looking on the internet trying to identify just what the proper connectors are. From what I see, it looks like one might find 20A, 30A, or 50A shore power outlets. Here is a circular from the USCG which describes these connectors. All of these connectors are of the twist-lock variety, none have flat blade connectors. Note that the 20A and 30A connectors are NEMA L5, for example the 30A connector is NEMA L5-30. There exists a NEMA L6-30 connector, which I think I had installed on my damaged shore power cord, which is very similar, but rated for 250 VAC use instead of 125 VAC. The L6 plug won't plug into an L5 receptacle, I found.:smt009
While it is possible to replace the end on a shore power cable, I doubt that one can ever get the waterproof seal that you get with a molded factory cable. For that reason, I ended up buying another shore power cable instead of another connector. The price difference was minimal.
Once you know that you have the proper shore power cable for your boat, then the issue may arise where you have a 30A shore power cord, and the marina has only 20A or 50A shore power. I don't know if we might encounter that on the trip, but if so, an adapter would be required to connect to shore power. The adapter should be of the same high quality as the shore power cord itself. Marinco is a common supplier of these items. I am not suggesting here it is proper to connect your 30A shore power cord to a 50A source, but I suspect you can buy a connector to do just that. I don't have one.
Corrections welcome.