June 25, 2012.

Lets talk about shore power cords. Even the most anal boating enthusiast takes their shore power cord for granted. No moving parts, plug it in and forget it. Whats to worry about. Who cares that this connection provides the 70 million megajoules of power needed to run your air conditioner, hair dryer, toaster oven and microwave. Preventative maintenance is for worry warts.

Twice this week we've had power cord incidents. The first was a large sailboat that needed repair. We had to drive to the boats home marina and pick it up to bring it to our facility for service. When the delivery crew tried to unplug the boat from its cord they found that it was welded together. Combine crappy connections, complete neglect with prolonged exposure to the weather and its not surprising that failure at this simple connection is so common.

When we called the owner to tell him that his boat was ready he was floored by the fact that we had to remove his burned cord end and replaced it with a new end. Since HES never had a problem with it he was certain that WE must have screwed it up. Yeah, thats it Cap. You got me, I was just tryin' to pad your bill by an extra 30 bucks. Its got nothing to do with the fact that you haven't looked at that connection since the spring of 67 when you last unplugged your boat. Christ.

Today we got a call from a guy who said his battery charger didn't seem to be working. There was power at the pedestal. The shore power cord checks good but no power is getting to the charger.

Upon further exploration it was discovered that the receptacle mounted in the transom had some issues. You know, corrosion, crappy connection, molten plastic and fire, the usual stuff.