Since I've just finished the new radio rack I thought I should mention Galena's electrical panel that I rebuilt a couple of years ago.

The original Westsail panel consisted of about 12 breakers. When I got the boat I found the typical rat's nest of wires behind that panel. I spend weeks tracing the wires. Some of the wires just ended under a settee, some ran to important devices but had three or more splices in them.
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I finally got off my butt and finished taking apart the Aries Windvane that we affectionately call "Harvey." The Aries is best described as a wind-directed, water-drive autopilot.
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Time to get back to work.
The bow pulpit had been removed (to replace the bowsprite). While cruising last winter we had destroyed the port side navigation light. So I decided to replace the lights and the wiring.

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This weekend I mounted the new VHF radio and painted the inside of the hull.
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Onboard Galena we have the standard marine VHF radios. They work fine for ship-to-ship communications when the range is less than 20 miles. But for cruising if you want to talk to someone (and admittedly that is a very big 'if') they are usually much further away. For long range comm, we have a ham (i.e.: amateur) radio, an Icom 706. With 100 watts of power and HF frequencies it can literally reach anywhere on the planet.
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...not so the wires leading to the LEDs.

Galena has a Richie Navigator compass on her bulkhead in the cockpit. Good compass. But after only 5-months of exposure to the sea the LEDs that light the front edge of the compass card corroded away. So we were back to a top-reading card only.
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