TOP 6 Electrical Spares Jeff Keeps On His Boat!
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With over 100 electrical spares on my boat, here are the top electrical items I think every boater should have. We have a big announcement. You can now become a YouTube member. You can join as a YouTube member right now here on screen for custom loyalty badges and emojis. [music] Or if you are looking for exclusive early access to our videos, live Q&As, and more direct support on your project, we also launched our brand new Patreon page, linked in the description below. Thank you so much for watching and being part of the Pacific Yacht Systems community. [music] Now, let's get back to the video. Jeff Cote here with Pacific Yacht System, and we've got another installment of Tech Talk. One of the common questions I get asked all the time by fellow boaters either online or in the real world in person is, "Jeff, what kind of electrical spares should I have on my boat uh to be able to resolve a problem that comes underway when I'm either cruising for a weekend or potentially for a longer time?" So, obviously all of us should be thinking about having more on our boat than we just need in the moment, right? So, it's not just about having food on the boat and provisions and our clothing, but we should also always be thinking about what are the common things that might happen on my boat and how can I resolve those issues at an anchorage and save the hassle of canceling a weekend or a trip and having to come back to port to resolve a problem. And what I recommend all of us should have is these essential sort of parts. And you want to have these parts to be able to solve small electrical problems that you might be encountering on a boat while you're cruising. So, having spare fuses and also very importantly spare fuse holders is absolutely essential. So, what kind of fuses are you going to have on your boat? Well, there's many different kinds, and you can go online and buy kits, but the type of fuses you probably want to have are called ATO ATC. These are basically blade fuses. They're like automotive style and they come in different color codes and you're going to want to have them in pretty much all permutations like 1 amp, 2 amp, 5 amp, 7 and 1/2 amp, 10 amp, 15, 20, 25, 30. And so you're going to want to have a kit of those fuses and you can go online and buy these little sort of plastic kits. They're going to have sort of an array of those fuses. So those would be popular. Another one too that you want to consider having are called glass fuses and some of you are certainly going to have glass fuses on your boat and you can also buy those glass fuses in little kits and there might even be smaller amperages like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, uh 10, 15, 20, 30, 25. So again, small little kit and they're going to have five or 10 fuses per little box and so you want to buy one of those. Then you're going to want to start thinking about the larger fuses on board like ANL fuses or class T fuses and that's where you don't really want to have a whole kit. You can't really buy a kit of that, but over time get to be familiar with your vessel and know like what kind of inverter fuse do you have on board? Is it a class T 300 or 400 amp? Is it an MRBF fuse? And you really want to be curious and find out all the fuses like do you have a fuse for your windlass? Do you have a fuse for your house loads? Do you have a fuse for all the big fuses on your boat? Maybe if you have I don't know winches. Now you should have thermal circuit protection for that, but if you've got fuses, you should definitely have spares for that. Now beyond that and I started off it's I use the word fuse and fuse holder. You absolutely want and this happened to me on a recent trip where actually the fuse holder itself failed, not the fuse. The fuse holder actually melted and failed. You want to have ATO ATC fuse holders for different gauges. Probably there's some that are up to 20 amps and other ones that are for basically 30 amps. You're going to want to have that on your boat. You're also want to have glass fuse holders because sometimes they do fail and it's not just the fuse that fails, it's the holder that's failed. So you want to have and again you can find those online, buy little bags and have a bunch. You don't need a hundred but five of each so that you can sort of like either tackle a little project or repair something that has failed. Fuses and fuse holders would be right up there. The other thing too that you're going to need to do for your boat is to create a basically a little kit of connectors that you're going to want to have on your boat. Like a ring type connectors, butt connectors of different sizes. Obviously when you're doing here in North America where we're doing connectors, you know, it's they come in different 16 18 14 16 and then 10 12. So you're going to want to have like basically red, blue and yellow. So again, maybe you're going to buy a little kit, maybe something like this of all different types of connectors. So you're going to want to have that on your boat. And then you're also going to want to have spare wire. So what I normally do on my boat, I have basically yellow and red number 10 and then I have yellow and red number 14 and then yellow and red number 18. I have them on the boat and I can tackle with that pretty much all the little electrical problems that might arise on a boat while I'm cruising and I'm away from port. So to recap, what are the things you want? You want to have pretty much all the popular fuse permutations, right? So ATO ATC which are those blade fuses. You want to have the glass fuses and also the very specific type of fuses you have on your boat. You also want to have fuse holders for especially the glass and the blade fuses. You want to have spares and they come in different amperages so make sure you have high amperage and normal amperage. And then you're going to want to have connectors for pretty much all the different type sizes, right? The red ones or pink the red and the blue. And then you're going to want to have wire sizes, number 10, number 14, number 18, red and yellow. Yellow being uh DC negative. And with that, you can be a hero. Right? You can have something not work or stop working, you can figure out what the problem is, and then you can resolve it. And there's nothing more satisfying as a boater to rescue your own vacation. Right? It's incredibly empowering. And maybe you're not going to be able to do it yourself, or maybe you're going to have a fellow boater. Now that you have the parts on board and you have what's needed, they can help you figure it out. And that is part of being a boater is being able to handle things as they come. And those would be the top categories of things that I have on my boat and that I recommend all of you have on your boat. And being on the water and being able to resolve a problem is extremely uh satisfying. If you made it this far, thanks so much for watching. We appreciate it. If you're local to the BC waters, check out the descriptions below. We can maybe come and help your boat with a project or a service that you have in mind. And if you're further afield and you'd like to have PYS in your corner, consider our discovery and design services, where we help boaters around the world come up with custom-tailored electrical plans for your boat. Thanks and be safe on the water. Hey fellow boaters, we're going to be doing a lot more tech talk videos. If you've got any suggestions for future videos, leave them in the comments below. Once again, thank you for watching.







