I have a pathological hatred for drilling holes in the deck of our boat, but sometimes it’s unavoidable, and when it is I’m guided by a healthy dose of deck-leak paranoia—it only takes one passage with a leak over your bunk to instill said condition for life.
The cables in the shot will be under the instrument pod, but even so I wanted them properly waterproof, since green water hitting the pod would definitely find a way in—see…paranoid.
These glands from Scanstrut are the best I have used. Multiple sizes and styles and each comes with several seals with different-sized holes and even a blank in case we need a custom size as I did on the one on the right.
Highly recommended.
And if you are wondering how I built the little shelf for them, here’s the hack.
Now all I have to do is get over my case of the sulks at Tillotson Pearson for building a boat with a nice instrument pod and then not providing a sensible way to get wires to it. I ask you.
This is the kind of stupid, but far too common shit we want to fix with the Adventure 40.
Hi John,
I have used the Scanstrut in completely exposed areas that might flood and been well pleased,
When re-instrumenting years ago, I was faced with getting multiple wires out of the cockpit under the dodger down into the boat. Water gets in there in really ornery conditions through, under, and around the canvas. I used a gooseneck which meant one hole just a scootch bigger that the wire group and then three shallow screw holes to secure the gooseneck.
I cover my gooseneck with a canvas “cap”: more for UV protection for the wire insulation than for waterproofing. But it would probably help. My under-the-dodger gooseneck is not in much danger of flooding, so I have not much worried about it. But it must be quite possible to secure from flooding as many deck-stepped masts use a gooseneck for their wiring.
The gooseneck also makes adding or removing wires quite easy, if a little added room is left in the hole and a messenger line is left in.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy