30 amp plug

[jprohan]

I have a 20 year old 32; I noticed recently that one of the holes on my shore power plug was blackened; and when I removed and touched the area it was hot! I pulled the male receptacle out of the boat; and discovered the white wire had been REALLY hot. Most of the insulation was worn off; and the wire was quite deteriorated. I also noticed that the guilty plug was a little loose. Needless to say I replaced the receptacle. So any of you out there with an older Albin; keep an eye on your shore power; when you remove the shore power plug; you should be able to touch it and not feel any heat.

[jleonard]

Yes that is a major cause of boat fires. Check your plugs

[DougSea]

Good post Jprohan,

Just to make a point - If you are pulling a lot of power, say 20-30 amps, running A/C, battery charger, fridge...the wires and terminals may be warm. Not hot, but you can certainly feel SOME heat.

Blackened terminals and hot? You have a problem and you need to resolve it right away. Corrosion is also an enemy of high current, so keep those terminals clean!

[Carl]

Not just the older boats! I was going to post this a couple weeks ago, and have been too busy. After returning from 3 days of fishing back to the home slip, I plugged in the boat and no power to the AC panel. Started checking things with the voltage tester, and traced it to the 30a plug in the boat. Removed the plug to find the hot wire (black) completely melted in the moulded plug. It looked like the connection (screw) had worked its way loose and started to heat up. We had the reverse cycle heat going because a few of the guys were staying on the boat over the weekend. The scary thing is we never smelled or saw any smoke.
One more thing to add to the Spring list, check/tighten shore power connections.
Ended up striping the cable back to get to some clean copper and installing a new plug, and all is good.
This was on a 2006 model.