Boat electrics and lighting
This category holds navigation and deck lights, switches, panels, breakers and cable for twelve and for twenty-four volts. On navigation lights the rules set the colour, the arc and the range, so they are not picked on looks. A breaker is chosen on the current rating of the cable, because it protects the wire and not the load. And on a switch the DC figure is the one that counts, not the AC one.
Boat electrics and lighting
This category holds everything between the battery and the load, that is navigation and deck lights, switches, panels, breakers and cable. The boat system runs on twelve or twenty-four volts DC, so different rules apply here than in a house. Navigation lights are no decoration either, because their colours, arcs and ranges are laid down by the collision regulations. The rest, that is deck and cockpit lighting, is yours to choose.
The first thing is the colour and arc of the navigation lights. The port side shows red and the starboard side green, each over an arc of a hundred and twelve and a half degrees, that is from right ahead to twenty-two and a half degrees abaft the beam. The sternlight is white and covers a hundred and thirty-five degrees, sixty-seven and a half to each side from right aft. The white masthead light forward adds two hundred and twenty-five degrees, and on vessels under twenty metres the two sidelights may be combined in one lantern on the centreline.
The second is range by length of vessel, because the rules count in nautical miles and not in lumens. On a vessel under twelve metres the sidelights have to be seen at one mile, while the stern, masthead and all-round lights have to be seen at two. The lumen figure on the box therefore says nothing on its own until the maker states which range the light meets. A longer boat faces higher requirements, so a light bought for the inflatable may not be enough for it.
The third is protection by the wire and not by the load. Neither a breaker nor a fuse protects the light or the pump but the cable, so that it does not glow in a short circuit. That is why the rating is chosen on the current rating of the wire and never above it. The American ABYC standard also requires that every ungrounded conductor be protected within seven inches of the source, so right at the battery or at the distribution bus.
The last is switches and their DC figure. A rocker switch carries two different numbers, one for alternating voltage and one for direct, and on a boat only the second one applies. Besides that you watch the mounting hole, because a panel with a twenty-millimetre cutout will take no other switch.
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