Boat DC Wiring Tips

I bought my boat uses and it is a British boat as well and the wiring that was and is in the boat is unique.  8-)   What I figured out was the original British wiring was done with brown and black wires.  What was added after that was done with any color wire the person that put it in had on hand.

What I have done over the last few years is try to color code the wiring to ABYC electrical standard colors.

Green or green with yellow stripes  ....  DC grounding conductors
Black or yellow                                ....  DC negative conductors
Red                                                   ....  DC positive conductors

If I had to replace a wire I use the correct color wire.   If the wire is still good I use fingernail paint to color the end of the wire insulation to the correct color.  I got rid of all wire nut connections and replaced them with crimp connections and used connection strips. (Wire nuts are not allowed on a boat).   The original British wire connectors were still good so I kept those.   They are neat. 8-) The wire ends slide in to a bake-alight housing that clamps together with a screw.  I tinned all the wire ends that went in to these to keep corrosion down.

                                          The British connector is the one on the right.
Finding yellow and green fingernail paint was the hard part.