EP 37 Sailing Reverie - Boat Fires & Shore Power a SmartPlug Story - Sailboat Restoration

Have you ever had to learn something new because of a problem you came across? I did. I learned that 55% of Boat Fires are caused by problems with shore power cords and shore power connection. The design of the NEMA Shore Power adapter has been in used since 1938 pretty much unchanged. This design has caused over $100M in damages to boats all over the USA as reported by BoatUS.com, as a result of boat fires. As we were getting ready to go for a leisurely sail, we ran into a problem with our shore power cord not wanting to disconnect from the boat inlet. After much trouble we were able to remove the cord to discover that we had a melt down on the cords. Whether this was caused by the recent lightning storms create a power surge or the contact on the cord becoming loose and overheating, a boat fire is not a problem I want to have on Reverie. Most people owns boats in the 27 to 42 ft range which means most of us use shore power to run our Air Conditioners, Charge our Batteries, run Water Heaters, etc. So we are always at risk when we are connected to shore power using the common shore power cable. On this episode we will show you our new shore power solution. We will do an unboxing of the product and walk through of the installation. Of course not every goes as smooth as we wish. So we hope you enjoy this episode. Timeline: 00:00 - Major Causes of Boat Fires 01:15 - The Problem We Found on Reverie 03:41 - The Solution SmartPlug 30A 125V 03:57 - SmartPlug Unboxing & Explanation of Safety Features 09:51 - Installation of SmartPlug Cable Head 19:42 - Installation of SmartPlug Boat Insert 24:50 - Testing of the newly installed SmartPlug 25:30 - Conclusion