Lead solar panel wires under/near fuel tank

[jbinbi]

See pic. What you see is the aft berth that has the support board lifted. The open 'panel' in the aft is how to get to the stern of the boat (I am a bit concerned at how uneven the thickness of fiberglass is, but that is for a different post). So it would be simple to just lead the wires from the solar panel that has cable clam on stern into the little channel and then next to fuel tank. Other pic is front of fuel tank and the well that it is in. I could lead the wires forward from there. That then goes into the galley, and right in front of the galley, almost admidships is the battery.


Boat has no conduits or pulls that are easy to get to from the stern, but as you can see, very simple to lead under/next to fuel tank under stb aft berth. I can then get it under floor boards under galley into battery area.

But not sure if you can put electrical wires where a fuel tank is? And it seems the tank is sort of in a well, not sure if that is to try to contain fuel spillage if there is a leak, and one should not drill low to lead the wires from there?

Bottom pic needs to rotate right, I keep doing it, when uploading it keeps have it rotated 90 deg CCW....

[wyb2]

Wouldn’t bother me if they are kept from physically resting against the tank and it’s continuous wire, no connections. But I’m sure someone will know if there is an ABYC or other relevant standard on the issue.

The light coming through the transom is unlikely to have much to do with the thickness of actual fiberglass, but the paint/gelcoat that is blocking the light. Bare fiberglass blocks very little light, and even plain white gel coat will let a fair bit through when looking from inside a dark boat on a bright day. My boat (and I’m guessing a lot of others) has a colored layer (blue in my case) under the white factory gel coat. It’s only purpose seems to be to stop the inside of the hull from glowing on a sunny day. There are areas where it was clearly applied inconsistently, and look a lot like the background of your photo.

[SailingHarmonie]

Running wires past fuel tanks is not an issue, it is done all the time (I am assuming this is a diesel tank). The wires should be secured, safely up and out of the way. The standard is AT LEAST every 18 inches. While you are at it, you might want to clean up the mess that is the wiring of the level gauge, which clearly does not comply with that standard!

I hope I am wrong about this next comment... It is always difficult to be accurate based on a single photo, but is that tank actually secured? It looks like a plastic tank, and in the photo there are no visible tie-downs... If the tank is free to slide around, that would be a huge issue. That would be an installation that would be beyond incompetent, and start to bump against malpractice.

[jbinbi]

Yes, diesel.

Will check on the tie downs. Brand new Hanse 348. German boat engineering is NOT the same as German auto engineering it seems...

My previous Lagoon had leader string all through conduits, all labelled, easy to get to behind closets and bulkheads.

[c.K.]

Originally Posted by jbinbi

See pic. What you see is the aft berth that has the support board lifted. The open 'panel' in the aft is how to get to the stern of the boat (I am a bit concerned at how uneven the thickness of fiberglass is, but that is for a different post). So it would be simple to just lead the wires from the solar panel that has cable clam on stern into the little channel and then next to fuel tank. Other pic is front of fuel tank and the well that it is in. I could lead the wires forward from there. That then goes into the galley, and right in front of the galley, almost admidships is the battery.


Boat has no conduits or pulls that are easy to get to from the stern, but as you can see, very simple to lead under/next to fuel tank under stb aft berth. I can then get it under floor boards under galley into battery area.

But not sure if you can put electrical wires where a fuel tank is? And it seems the tank is sort of in a well, not sure if that is to try to contain fuel spillage if there is a leak, and one should not drill low to lead the wires from there?

Bottom pic needs to rotate right, I keep doing it, when uploading it keeps have it rotated 90 deg CCW....

And this is diesel fuel I guess? no problem