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120v Outlets

chandlerabney

New Member
Hello Folks,

I bought a 1982 38ft Morgan almost a year ago. The owner died and the boat was left unattended for at least a year and a half. It lost shore power and when the family finally decided to get rid of the boat, water was a couple of inches above the floor and also had a termite problem. We took a risk and decided to motor it 18hrs to her new home, with neither one of us having any experience other than a Jon Boat LOL. Somehow we made it safe.

The previous owner had really dropped some money into before he passed (43hp beta marine only had 16hrs on it when purchased, new transmission, new VHF radio, GPS, Depth Finder, AIS, main sail, batteries, Air conditioner, hydro vain and auto pilot.

We treated the termite problem and are in the process of replacing all of the damaged wood, but I have not been able to get the 120v outlets to work.

Where is the power inverter that runs the 120v outlets in the cabin? What are the steps to solving this issue?

I'm still trying to familiarize myself with all of the systems on these larger boats.

TIA
 
Be careful with the AC. I do my own DC work, but hire ABYC certified electricians to work on the AC.

There is no way of knowing what the previous owner did. The original Morgan plan was to have a 120V marine plug in the stern, just behind the cockpit. There was a household switch/breaker inside the aft cockpit locker. They they ran wires from there under the cockpit coaming to an AC panel next to the DC panel by the chart table. Wires went from there to the water heater in the galley and to outlets in the galley, in the book shelf, in the head, in the forecastle and next to the starboard pilot berth. Unless replaced, the wiring was typically three conductor stranded copper. If you look behind one of the outlets, you should find some. T`he outlets are for shoreside use (not bad, per se, but 40 years old now). I think the port side circuit is all protected by the galley's GFCI plug. There was no inverter to power the outlets. Not up to current ABYC standards. If your vessel has an air conditioner, they might have upgraded, however.
 
Tia
As Terry writes, the original 120V system on our Morgans was not built to current ABYC standards. As a retired electrician from NYC, I can attest to the fact that the 120V system as it came from the factory was outright dangerous. On our boat the system has been removed. If your boat has not been updated by an ABYC certified electrician, I would be very careful with it's use.

Jim
 
Be careful with the AC. I do my own DC work, but hire ABYC certified electricians to work on the AC.

There is no way of knowing what the previous owner did. The original Morgan plan was to have a 120V marine plug in the stern, just behind the cockpit. There was a household switch/breaker inside the aft cockpit locker. They they ran wires from there under the cockpit coaming to an AC panel next to the DC panel by the chart table. Wires went from there to the water heater in the galley and to outlets in the galley, in the book shelf, in the head, in the forecastle and next to the starboard pilot berth. Unless replaced, the wiring was typically three conductor stranded copper. If you look behind one of the outlets, you should find some. T`he outlets are for shoreside use (not bad, per se, but 40 years old now). I think the port side circuit is all protected by the galley's GFCI plug. There was no inverter to power the outlets. Not up to current ABYC standards. If your vessel has an air conditioner, they might have upgraded, however.

Thanks for the feedback,

So the 120v system only works when connected to shore power?
 
There was no inverter in the original system. Owners may have added upgrades to the boat. We have a 600 watt true sine wave inverter that is used to charge tool batteries, phones, etc.

Jim
 
I wouldn’t trust anything on the original Morgan 120 V outlets. Or more particularly the stern plug-in in order to get the power board. That’s fitting was a piece of junk.
 
Most Morgan's I have seen are wired from the 1970's mine had a hard wired shore power cable and I have slowly upgraded the electrical to ABYC standards wiring is the first upgrade I did that and LED lighting... then New Electrical Panel New Battery Managment Panel and of course the dreaded wiring... the Surveyor I got to check over my boat condemned my electrical....
 
My boat may have been rewired before my purchase, or maybe Morgan was more careful with mine. The AC wire running thru the boat is all three conductor stranded wire, encased in a grey cover. It is not solid copper wire, like in a house. To pass survey, I had to cover the AC panel (I had that installed new where the old one was) with a plastic cover so you could not just slip and poke your fingers in. The outlet in the head had to be one with a cover. I should replace all the outlets, but have not yet done it. I removed the crappy household breaker in the stern, installed a SmartPlug and a galvanic Isolator. More recently, and perhaps most importantly, an ABYC electrician installed a Blues Sea ELCI breaker at the end of my quarter berth. It is like a GFCI for the whole boat. https://panbo.com/gfci-and-elci-breakers-can-be-confounding-but-heed-their-warning/ I trust Dick and Jim on this stuff, they know their stuff. And they may tell if I am wrong. But I have not pulled out all the old wire because it is the right kind and if there is a, problem, the ELCI will warn me. https://www.morganscloud.com/2021/08/10/check-your-boat-shore-power-system/ The second link here is to Attainable Adventure Cruising. You have to join the site to read most of the site's material. But I consider the $25-$35 a year I pay to be the best sailing investment I have ever made.
 
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If you want to know if the 120V system on your boat has been upgraded at all, you need only look up and under the rear cockpit coaming behind the wheel. It is a very hard place to find and get to. The shore power (yellow) cable attaches to the boat aft of this coaming on the starboard side. Inside of this location, up and under the coaming, is a 30A disconnect box. If you find this box, and by this time it will be a ball of rust, you can rest assured that your boat has not been upgraded and will most likely burn to the waterline if you continue to use the 120V system.

Jim
 
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