I'm lost on this

Awesome, Jim!

For solar charge controllers, I have Genasun GV-10, one for each 100W panel. They're pretty simple.

Also, I was thinking - seeing all these comments on removing wires to nowhere - sometimes future you will thank you for leaving one behind. Wire runs are a pain in the butt. Nice to use the old wire to mouse the new one through. In particular thinking of the run from the main panel under the hallway to the engine compartment!

@Kevin - so many ways to skin a cat! or wire your batteries. What's the reason for having separate solar?

Sorry to hear you have lightning damage. Out of curiosity, did lightning strike your mast, or did it strike your marina's electrical system and come via the shore power cable?

Hi Grace,

Lightning hit my mast and fried just about all the breakers. I have new everything. I have a single panel 50W on my start battery. And 600W on my house batteries. I have always kept my systems separate. Only Windlass and one manual high capacity bilge pump is on start battery as I only use these when engine running or emergency. All else on house batteries. Still working on the rest of the wiring. Hopefully I will have my Nav lights done this weekend and I can go sailing in these nice northerlies we are having in Miami.

Cheers!

On the wires to nowhere, I left a set of 3 that were the previous wires to the mast lights as they are still good. As for the wires to the engine room, I removed all of them as they were fried and replaced with two 12 gauge x 7 wire marine cables.

I now have everything in enclosed cables and only 2 sets of bare wires in protectors that go to my washdown pump and fresh water pump. Like you Grace, I have a 50 foot cable that I connect to the house battery buss and drag it around to use to ring out wires. One side to hot to verify grounds and the other to ground to verify the hot ones. This really helps when using my sire tone generator to find where a wire is running behind a bulkhead. It is pretty sensitive. Has helped from me having to take the whole dang boat apart although I have most of it apart now. lol.

I am running all wires that are in the bilge thorough conduit and I seal the ends with silicone as I store a lot of food and gear in my bilges, mainly booze and don't want any wires getting cut or abraded.

Best of luck all with your wiring. One thing for sure is that we will know exactly where to go when we have an issue once this is done. I am working on my wiring diagram as soon as the nav lights are done and I can sail. The rest I will do when I am at anchor in some relaxing location.

Cheers..

Wow Kevin, you are so lucky that you didn't lose your whole boat! Thank goodness for those breakers!