Nav lights fitted

I spent Sunday down the boat fitting the new (4 year old!) LED nav lights to sprite.

The ex-cordless 12v drill came in handy once again. I can't believe how many times I've used that drill now. Converting it to run off the boat battery was a stroke of genius. Especially as the lead length allows me to use the drill in most places on the boat.

The first step was to come up with a solution to the fact I was fitting the lights myself. Now I don't have long arms, but I bet the tallest person in the world hasn't got the reach to hold a nut inside the cabin whilst simultaneously turning the screw from the outside.

The solution was to glue the screws into the light fittings: just a light sliver of glue because there wasn't such a big gap between the screw and the hole. Here's one waiting for the glue to set:

The next step while the glue was setting was to offer up the rubber gasket for each new light and drill pilot holes:

Then the correct hole sizes for each hole. 4mm for the screw hole and 5mm for the wiring hole.

Once the correct hole sizes were drilled, the area around the wire and the screw was given a dollop of polyurethane sealant. The wires were fed through and the screw was pushed into the screw hole. The advantage of drilling a hole just big enough is the light stays in place while I crawled in the cabin.

I fitted the nut (and a big penny washer to spread the load) on the end of the screw and tightened it up just enough to compress the gasket and spread the sealant.

Here's the light in place on the starboard side:

The white gelcoat filler shows, but another round of sanding with some wet sandpaper will get rid of the over fill and I'll just be left with a small white dot.

The same was repeated for the port side.

I've yet to figure out the wiring. As the switch box is on the starboard side, the wiring for the port light will have to run through the bilges. I seem to remember many years ago, when I did the wiring from the engine, I left a loop of string in the bilge so I could pass wire to and fro.

Lets hope it's still there and not rotted away, otherwise it's going to be pretty difficult routing the wiring across the boat.

Next weekend one of the grandkids wants to come on the boat as a birthday treat, so I shall be distracted somewhat. No work being done next weekend.

As it is I spent a good couple of hours on Sunday clearing up all the tools and rubbish from wiring up the fusebox so there will be space in the boat.