The video is in French. The whole job is written up in English below.
That week there was no clean plan on paper. There was a boat, a pile of new gear out of its boxes, and the idea that we were finally going to drag the electrical system out of its make-do state into something thought through, tidy, and dependable enough for a circumnavigation.
Spoiler: it started by pulling everything out.
Strip it all out to build it all again
First step, without hesitating: disconnect the batteries and clear the space. I had said I would strip the lot, and I did, right to the end. Not for the pleasure of wrecking things, but because there was no other way to get at the cables. The result: everything I had fitted before came back out, and we were left with a bare space, ugly, but readable at last.
It also meant shifting the washing machine to free up a proper dedicated spot for the batteries, with a bulkhead right next to it to mount all the electrical kit. The kind of detail that looks trivial on paper but completely changes how accessible and how workable it is once you are at sea.
The gear turning up, and the partnership that changes things
A good part of that week’s equipment — Lynx Power In, SmartShunt, the charger for the engine batteries, the two Orion converters — was sent to us by SVB Marine, a partner of the project. Without laying it on: it is now one of the sites I use most for anything to do with the boat, with a catalogue running past 30,000 items, from electrics to plumbing, delivered to the marina if you want. Customer service answers quickly, both on after-sales and on advice, which counts when you are getting a week of work ready and you would rather not pay chandlery prices on the quay.
For anyone ordering: the code CQSEVIDENCE gets you a free product of your choice on the site (a strap, a bucket hat, a cap, a glasses retainer, and so on).
Understand the diagram before plugging anything in
Before touching a single cable, I took the time to sit down and lay out the boat’s wiring diagram calmly. In practice it splits into two circuits that talk to each other:
- The house batteries (two at the moment, in series for 24 V, due to be doubled or tripled) feed the Lynx Power In through a fuse. That connects straight to the Lynx Distributor, which sends power out through the whole boat: the inverter for 230 V, the main electrical panel, and the charging inputs (lithium charger and the two Orions).
- A SmartShunt on the negative lets you follow every voltage on the house circuit.
- On the other side, the engine batteries have their own SmartShunt, wired directly to the 24 V alternator, and join the boat’s common negative bus.
- All of it reports up to the Cerbo GX, the little Victron onboard computer that gathers the whole system’s data in real time.
If you are starting out in boat electrics, SVB Marine’s “installation examples” page (Victron section) is a good base: every device on the typical diagram is clickable and takes you straight to the matching part.
Two and a half days of wiring, and a galley rebuilt on the side
Once the diagram was clear in my head, it had to be wired. Two fuses on the input side, the two Orions connected, a common positive busbar to keep the number of connections and cables down. Meanwhile, in parallel, the galley got rebuilt: sink fitted, worktop replaced, a lighter colour to brighten the inside of the boat a little. It was not planned as a job in its own right, but a badly fixed sink and a bodged old worktop quickly earned their own strip-out and rebuild.
A good part of the work happened in a mess — an organised mess, but a mess. That is the normal rhythm of a job like this: you make progress on one thing, you discover a blocker somewhere else, you adapt.
The moment it actually lights up
After a long day of wiring, the test: switch the house circuit on, put the lights on. It works. That moment, however simple it looks on paper, is still the only real sign that a boat’s electrical system has been properly thought through — not just plugged together.
On the Victron Connect app and on the VRM portal you now get everything in real time: state of charge, output power, voltages, currents, battery temperatures. Enough to keep a proper eye on the installation, which to me is the real advantage of the brand despite what the kit costs.
What is still left
Nothing is ever entirely finished on a job like this. There is still a battery isolator to fit so the batteries can be cut off while I am away. One of the two house batteries turned out to be unbalanced at full charge — it is under warranty and a claim is open. The electrical panel has been rearranged, more usable than before even if it looks a little untidier, apart from one cable whose exact destination I still do not know.
The next step will be either finishing the hull or starting on the interior paint. Nothing is set; the refit goes as it comes.