My Boatamalan* painter says the Whisper Wall headliner has to be installed before he sprays the ICA clear top coat in the salon and V-berth. Before the headliner can be installed, all of the lighting and sound system wiring and attachment points have to be installed. Since access to the wiring will be complicated once the headliner is installed, I wanted to power up the 12vdc breaker panel first so I can identify all of the circuits and make sure things work the way I want. This will be a big step. The boat was put on the hard back in the mid-1980s, and the last registration sticker on the helm station side windows was dated 1981. Unless I’m wrong, these circuits haven’t been energized for ~35 years.
Boatamalan: portmanteau indicating highly skilled boat workers of Central American origin. They’re actually from Honduras, but Boatamalan rolls off the tongue better. 
The main power panel
First, I installed the remote for the Magnum inverter/charger
Next, I installed the battery selector switches
I made the switch base two years ago. Man…how time flies. Anyway, I wetted out the contact areas with epoxy, applied wood flour-thickened epoxy, then screwed the switch base in place.
That looks about right
The switches are located just inside a hatch I cut in the salon floor that’s sized so an 8D battery can be lowered into the engine room. They’re out of the way, but are easily accessed from either the ER or the salon. I wanted it that way because on other Chris Crafts I’ve owned, I could only access the switches from one or the other space. This is much more convenient.
Installing the cross-overs
Next, the battery cables got installed
One last check of the wiring in the salon service chase
Speaking of the service chase, back in May 2018 I installed the service chase panels when I was working on the aft salon cabinet interior. It looked great!
See what I mean?
But over the summer, I started noticing a problem with the upper panel…the one that I’d had my painter put a new veneer on, then stain and spray to match the rest of the salon.
Blisters and waves
In the heat of the summer, it developed big blisters under the mahogany veneer (encircled above) and you can see and feel waves where the arrow is. They did a poor job with the contact cement, and now the whole thing has to be redone. It’s really frustrating paying expensive professionals to do a job poorly. Fortunately, he says he’ll redo it for no charge.
Anyway, back to the 12v breaker panel.
The moment of truth
Chris Craft powered the 12v breaker panel such that the starboard engine battery powered one bank of breakers and the port side powered the other. I’ll be using several batteries that will make up the starboard engine/house bank. The port engine will have just a starting battery. So I wired both banks of the breakers together with a jumper rather than using the original cable from the port battery.
With everything attached, I made sure all of the breakers were off then flipped the battery switch to the ON position.
Nothing happened…no sparks…no smoke…nothing. I was so happy! So then I started flipping breakers on one by one. Again…no sparks…no smoke…nothing. So I went to the aft stateroom and flipped the switch on one of the OEM light fixtures…and something happened!
And then there was light!
I spent the next hour going around with a multimeter, confirming that there’s power throughout the 12v system. Everything checks out. For the first time in three decades, juice is flowing through the 12v wiring!
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Salon Light Mounts
1969chriscraftroamer46 