Electrical is where most serious problems on a boat begin, and it is the system owners can see least of. Corrosion works behind panels. A connection loosens by a fraction and starts making heat. A shore power inlet that felt fine last month begins to warm. None of it announces itself until something stops working, or worse.
Our marine electricians are in house, which means the person diagnosing the fault is the person who fixes it. Nothing gets handed off and re-explained.
What we do
Most calls start as a fault, and the work is tracing it properly rather than replacing parts until the symptom goes away. We test, measure and find the actual cause on AC and DC systems both, then tell you what it is in plain language before any work starts.
A large share of what we find sits at the shore power inlet, which is the single most common origin point for dock fires. We check the pins for heat scoring and corrosion, test the cord ends, and confirm your galvanic isolator is doing its job rather than simply being present. Inside the boat the same logic applies to panels and breakers: a nuisance trip is a symptom, not an inconvenience, so we find what is opening the breaker, check terminations for heat, and correct wiring that was never right to begin with.
On the charging side we look at resting voltage, charger output on every leg, terminal condition and cable sizing. If your batteries keep dying between trips, the answer is usually not new batteries. Where you want to add rather than repair, we handle inverters, lithium conversions, additional circuits, electronics and monitoring, installed to ABYC standards and labelled and documented so the next person to open that panel can understand it.
What you would notice first
The plug or cord end feels warm when you unplug. A breaker trips for no reason you can identify. Electronics reset themselves while the boat sits. Lights dim when something else switches on. Batteries that were fine last season are flat after two weeks. Any of these is worth a call before it becomes a bigger job.
Common questions
Do you work to ABYC standards?
Yes, and it matters for more than tidiness. Insurers increasingly ask, and after a loss, non compliant electrical work is one of the first things a carrier looks at.
Can you find an intermittent fault?
Usually. Intermittent faults are almost always a connection that expands and contracts with heat or movement. They take longer to locate than a dead short, and we would rather spend the time finding it than guess at parts.
Do I need to be there?
No. We work on boats whose owners are in another state. You get told what we found and what we did, in writing.
