I am doing a major overhaul of a new to me CD-22 that has a series of issues to be addressed. When I purchased the boat, it had 2 trickle charge solar panels about 2" x 6" mounted on the forward corners of the motor well. The wiring is 16 ga black and red duplex wire which was routed into each lazarette, out the bottom of the lazarette, where it ran aft across the top of the fuel tanks to small controllers mounted on the inside of the transom. Each of the controllers was wired to a 12V battery with another small duplex wire. Over time, the fuel tanks had pinched the wiring against the underside of the motor well at the back side of the fuel tank so tightly that I could not remove the wire at that point on one side. On the other side, the paired conductor had been so flattened that it was very near to shorting out sitting there right on the top of the tank. There was no fuse in the positive lead by the battery. In the event the lead had shorted out, the only thing that was keeping me from having a full blown 12V fed arc and hot spot directly on top of the polyethelene fuel tank was whatever circuitry was in the controller. If that circuitry did not function as a fuse or in some other way prevent the backfeed from the battery subsequent to a short between the controller and the solar panel, I would have had a severe issue, especially if underway.
There are several points to make from this:
1) Be very careful to inspect any wiring that goes across the top of the fuel tanks as their back edge gets very tight against the underside of the motor well.
2) Every positive lead should be appropriately fused near the battery.
3) Given what I know about the previous owner, I suspect but cannot be sure that the small solar panels were installed by the dealer who delivered the boat. The east coast dealer no longer handles C-Dory but sold quite a number of boats. There may be owners with a similar solar trickle charger set up. If you have that set up, you really need to carefully examine it and, if you choose to keep it, make sure that it is properly fused.
There are several points to make from this:
1) Be very careful to inspect any wiring that goes across the top of the fuel tanks as their back edge gets very tight against the underside of the motor well.
2) Every positive lead should be appropriately fused near the battery.
3) Given what I know about the previous owner, I suspect but cannot be sure that the small solar panels were installed by the dealer who delivered the boat. The east coast dealer no longer handles C-Dory but sold quite a number of boats. There may be owners with a similar solar trickle charger set up. If you have that set up, you really need to carefully examine it and, if you choose to keep it, make sure that it is properly fused.