Ground Your Boat for Swimmers' Safety

    We just installed a Charles Marine isolation transformer in L'Esprit.
    Honestly I'd never even heard of the thing until we arrived in Petersburg, Alaska, and had to move from the preferred North Dock to South Dock, which was farther from town.
    Our crime? Every time we connected our shore power, we kicked on the dock's circuit breaker. Maybe a ground wire came loose. Maybe a current decided to change paths. Whatever. I'm not an electrical genius. All I know is we had to pull up stakes and move to the far end of town, and that we were in danger of electrifying the surrounding water and divers within.
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   From conversations with the dock master, we learned that requiring isolation transformers is the wave of the future. More and more marinas will be requiring them to ensure the public's safety and to reduce the chance of fires.
    So when we got back home in Anacortes, Capt. Dave, along with fellow traveler Dennis Thornton, set about solving this problem once and for all. Shawn Clark of Pacific Marine Electric in Bellingham came down and installed a Charles Marine Iso-G2 transformer in each of our boats. Now we feel squared away and ahead of the curve.
    Want more information about isolation transformers? Here are four articles on the subject from Passagemaker, BoatUS, Sail World, and Canadian Yachting. 

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