Marianne and I had the first Malo custom built for the American market. In that sense we got a great deal on the boat. But also, Malo and Discovery Yachts were just learning to work together. It probably did not help that our boat broker quit right in the middle of the project, and the owner of Discovery, Mike Locatel, jumped in to help. Everything turned out fine, and it was a great experience in international finance for me.
One of the issues, however, was installation of the electrical service. Malo had a stock service they sold for a very small amount of money, Unfortunately, they were used to doing it in 240 VAC, which is the standard in Europe. They obligingly did ours in 110VAC, the American standard. I knew I would be upgrading this system when I bought it. Here is what happened:
The first step was an upgrade in the entry service. My original service came with two circuits. I upgraded the box to the maximum that would fit in the space, but keeping with the European look. The entry cabling was upgraded to 8 gauge. ( I did not do this work, but contracted it out).
The new five circuits include a heating/AC circuit at 20 amps, two 10 amp circuits for the water heater and battery charger, one five amp circuit for the computer, and one 10 amp for general outlets.
We also installed a very neat thing called an automatic transfer switch, which Malo kindly provided us. This switch senses the current at the main – either AC or DC, and switches the circuits from the entry service to the inverter. This switch does not switch the water heater or the charger circuit from AC to DC, only the plug circuits.
I then strung a lot of 14/3 and 12/3 marine grade cable throughout the boat. (I did this part – it took forever). All of the plug circuits were placed on Ground Fault interrupter (GFI) circuits. Up near the headliner is a 20 amp circuit to take an AC unit in the midships hatch, without having to dangle electrical extension cables everywhere.
Taking things to an extreme level, I also installed electrical boxes in each of the forward and aft lockers. These are dedicated to installing "golden rod" heating elements. These are tiny little heaters that produce a small amount of heat to keep mildew out of lockers. They work on AC only, and feel slightly war to the touch. If clothing accidentally brushes up next to them there is no danger from fire. We lost quite a bit of expensive clothing to mildew the first year living aboard, until we discovered these rods – we have three forward and one aft. They have solved all of our mildew problems.
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