Masthead Lighting for 36ft Classic

[jazzzman]

Does anyone have the wiring diagram for the Masthead lighting for a 1979 36ft Albin Trawler? I have no power at the base of the Mast. I cannot see the path the wires use in the cabin to get to the base of the mast. There must be a short in the cabin wiring. Help!! Dennis

[jleonard]

Does this help?

Albin36Schematics.pdf

[jazzzman]

Jleonard:
Yes, very much. Thank you, Dennis

[sburgis]

On my 1982 36' Albin the mast wiring comes up the wire chase forward of the Starboard door and then runs above the cabin roof under the floor of the flying bridge. It exits near the center of the flying bridge floor and is encased in a plastic spiral wrapping (that may not be original) and then attaches to the mast above the pivot/hinge.

Steve Burgis
Summer Triangle

[jazzzman]

Thanks Steve:
How do you access the wires under the flying bridge from the wire chase to the wire's exit near the mast? I see no access to the wires in the cabin ceiling or the bridge floor. Is there a chase in the ceiling under the headliner?
Dennis

[sburgis]

I do not know of a way to get at the wiring. I had to add some unrelated wires and used the side of the flybridge as a wireway to near the back. Then exit thru a hole under the drip edge and run under the drip edge to the back of the cabin. In my case the wires went into the cabin thru the aft wall to power the TV and TV antenna (on the mast). I also ran the radar cable along that same path. If you need to run replacement wires you could follow that route. You will probably need a fish tape or promise an electrician a ride. If I knew how to access the space between the cabin roof and the flybridge floor I would have followed that path. While you are at it, pull in an extra wire or a string so you can fish the next addition more readily.

[brookesmith]

BEFORE YOU READ THE REST BELOW, YOU SAY YOU HAVE NO POWER. THAT WOULD BE ANCHOR AND MASTHEAD LIGHTS. THE MASTHEAD SHOULD COME ON WITH THE RUNNING LIGHT BREAKER. IF YOU HAVE NEITHER MASTHEAD OR ANCHOR THIS WOULD INDICATE TO ME THE NEGATIVE BLACK WIRE IS OPEN AS IT IS THE RETURN PATH FOR BOTH THE ANCHOR AND MASTHEAD LIGHTS. YOU MIGHT TEST FOR + VOLTAGE TO TEMPORARILY RUN DIFFERENT GROUND (NEGATIVE LEAD) WITH A VOLTMETER. RUNNING A NEW GROUND WIRE FROM UNDER F.B. COULD FIX BOTH LIGHTS.
I will check Thursday on the path of my 79 double cabin 36' . I am in the process of REMOVING my mast and have ordered LED forward mast head and an anchor lights. The mast serves no real purpose to me other than being a real pain when getting into our COVERED SLIP. SO, it's coming off.
I have had several re-wiring projects all over my 36. There is a nice raceway right next to the lower helm that comes off with screws and is great to run new wires or tracing existing to the fly bridge. I'm pretty sure the running, forward mast head and anchor light wiring pass through up there. NOT REAL SURE. I will check and be glad to email pictures directly to you. It may be beneficial to re-wire the mast and run new wires from the breaker; up the raceway; under the starboard side lip and around the back to the mast. It's the path my radar installation took. Oh yea; I'm taking the very old radar off with the mast too. .

[brookesmith]

OK I'm on my boat and looked at the mast wiring. It does appear to go through the salon ceiling to the wiring closet. If you need to replace this wiring take a different route. From the wiring closet with the breakers run the wire into the starboard helm step compartment; unscrew the vertical raceway screws running just in front of the starboard door; run the wire up to the fly bridge; drill a hole under the roof on the starboard side and exit the flybridge through this hole; continue aft under the lip of the roof until you wrap around to the mast connector. I hope this makes sense without pictures. I recently ran 120VAC up to the flybridge along the path to the flybridge and installed a duplex socket up there for whenever I need 120VAC. (recharge the hand held spot, etc). The running of the wire was pretty easy. I also saw the radar installation had taken this path I've described to the mast. I cut most of the wire ties and replace them with velcro strips from Home Depot. You get 50 for $5.00 and they are easy to undo to add wires etc. It seems when using zip ties, I would end up cutting them because I left out a wire. You can make very nice, neat cable harnesses with the Velcro strips 12-18" spacing.

I think I've spoke of the disgust of much of the factory wiring on this boat, Of course this was 1979 and in Taiwan. When tested with a polarity tester ALL of the 120VAC sockets were reversed. ALL OF THEM. The 120VAC sockets were wired with red, black and green colored wires. Black, White and green are the normal colors. Black being hot, white neutral and green ground. But, how and why they picked red color instead of white is beyond me, So at the 120VAC breakers, they chose RED as the hot switched wire. Black is neutral and of course green is ground.

Whoever, wired the socket end of these wire must have assumed that black was hot and of course green is ground and that only left red as neutral. Once I discovered this and reversed the red and black at EACH SOCKET on the boat everything was electrically correct. Cause electricity doesn't care what color a wire is. I emailed ABYC about this and told them the wire and connections were good; but about the crazy color scheme. He suggested putting white tape over the black wires and black tape over the red wires where practical. I haven't done that yet. Also, on the albinowners board has electrical schematic of the 12v and 120VAC. They have + and - signs on the AC service panel schematic. I think they mean + is hot (switched) and - as neutral and they do not show the green at all. But what is interesting is they show the colors coming out of the hot switched breakers as RED. Except for the Hot water heater breaker, which has WHITE as the hot switched wire going to the hot water heater! WHITE, Why in the world did they decide to wire the hot water heater hot wire with a white color wire????? I HAVE NOT LOOKED AT THE HOT WATER HEATER END OF THIS WIRE YET. I am betting it is reverse wired at the hot water heater. The hot water is just a resistive element and SHOULD not care whether the wires are reversed. But, I DO for my sanity. I've tried to rationalize what will happen if the element goes bad and electrifies the hot water. I would hope the green wire would do it's trick and trip the breaker. It could mean you have very hot water. (hot temperature and 120VAC) I occasionally take a shower on board and the thought of the wiring makes me nervous.
Sorry I got on my rant and rave. I hope you have figured out how to run new wire to your mast if you have too. I should post my 12V findings in another post in the future. The 12V wiring is overkill in places and could be fire hazards in others places.