Hanse 345 - Solar panel in front of Sprayhood

Regrettably I have no photos or film of the process. But I sort of have to repeat the process later this year since I’m installing new solar panels on the garage and probably will change to thicker cables. Hopefully are the lines I left for pulling wires this route still there. I’ll try to remember documenting this.

Bjorn in S/Y Rulten

Let me just rant for a second and say I have done electrical work on Lagoons, Beneteuas, Juneaus, Catalinas and Hunters. For a german engineered boat that Hanse is, I am terribly disappointed in how poor vs. what could have been done. All the other boats have left pull strings, conduits, markings etc. so you could lead your own wires. Hanse has NOTHING. Ok, end rant, here is what I found.

Battery is on the stb side, it is almost impossible at least to what I have found to lead wires from side to side. There is a fiberglass stringer that goes across from battery area to to under settee berth on port side. It is crammed with 00 battery cable to breakers for windlass, etc. I have 3 different types of snakes, attached to endoscope, and couldn't get it across! I am sure if I spent another few hours maybe I would get the right angle, I have plastic and metal snakes. You can lead a wire from the port side into the fwd cabin, past the aft part of the water tank and back down the stb side. This is alot of wire, remember the longer the wire the more the resistance, the higher the voltage drop. So the longer the run the thicker the wire (smaller gauge, e.g. if you could have used 14 gauge, you would need maybe 12 guage). Possibly not important for devices, but certainly for your solar panel input to the MPPT controller.

So I decided I need to stay on the stb side. Getting the wires down the backstay and into the boat I put a cable clam on the back of the toe rail where it meets the stern. Then you can get wires if you open the hatch at the aft end of stb berth. I was able to lead a wire from the battery area, then behind the stove, if you open the locker under the stove and take out the thin almost cardboard piece of wood at the bottom you get to the hull. You can fish a wire through a hole in the bulkhead at the bottom. tough to find, but it is there, I figured it would be there as there is an AC outlet at the bottom of the locker. That is where I pulled the wire to , I took out the outlet to let me get in there.

I would have loved to found a way to run a wire above the cabinet, you would think there is a chase, I found you can run a wire along the joint of the hull to deck, there are wires in there i saw with the endoscope, but could not find a way thru the bulkhead between galley and aft cabin.

I then led the wires up from the underside of the locker by drilling a hole from bottom of the locker and pulling wire up, drilled a hole in each shelf and led wire out of top of locker through vent hole. If you take off the panel over the middle of the berth that allows access to bottom of winch, you can get to area that runs along side of the hull. Was able to make a hole in the underside of this channel above the locker, a bit aft as needed to get drill in there, and pull wire into this channel, get wire, and then lead it back into the area you can access when you take the hatch at the aft end of the berth.

I did not find a way to go from under the locker to the aft, even though the gas line from the cockpit gas locker goes there. That looks to be sealed. Tried with the endocscope to see any holes and found nothing. I also though of bringing wire in from aft alongside fuel tank, but that is in a self contained tub, and I didn't want to drill through it to the locker.

Now on to your question about leading wires from the hatch area. First off, I have 2 more smaller solar panels on my dodger (spray hood I think EU calls it?) One on each side. I would strongly recommend if you put a panel in front of the hatch that you put 2 panels on each side of the middle. A panel in the middle with probably be shaded by the boom/sails lots of the time. Shaded panels are super inefficient. If you have 2 panels separated, one should not be shaded. But I digress. 

I need to lead a wire from the panels on my dodger into the boat. To the stb side of course. For me, I am leading the wires down the fame of the dodger and I put a cable clam very close to the hatch in the stb berth. When I had the access panel off that gets to winch, I thought that I should be able to snake a wire up to where the light by the hatch is. I pulled the light out (it just has 2 spring clips which will snap on your fingers every time), the put a snake down from the hole the light was in toward the hatch. Snake came out the hatch, attached a pull string and pulled it out the hole. So I had run 2 sets of wires from the battery compartment as described before, one for the bimini panel and the other for the dodger. Both are accessible in the winch access panel hole. 

Sorry this is a huge post, I hope it helps. I spent about 10+ hours looking, probing, and finally pulling wires. I have left pull strings everywhere I could for future use.

If someone has a route from side to side, I would be extremely interested in hearing about this. I have yet to find how the wires to the chartplotter are routed. The wiring diagrams show there is a side to side route over the companionway area, right behind where the hatch is. I can see the hole, but I can't get my snake to get through to the other side. It is also a small hole, I can't see how I can lead duplex wire through it.

I would post pics, but for some reason this site only allows small file sizes and cellphones have 10MP cameras, all my pics get rejected. I would love to post all my pics as I take them all over.

And please do let me know if you find a solution.

Thanks a lot,

Tom

This is unfortunate as it is trivial to lead a wire from portside aft, along the hull large cockpit locker, behind shower, behind sink in head, and into access panel under the chart table, which is then open to distribution panel under aftmost portside settee. Just can't get it there to battery! 

There supposedly is a way to lead a wire overhead according to the manual, this channel is right where the lights are next to companionway hatch. You can even see the hole. I have spent much time trying to fish across this with no luck!

See my post regarding leading stb side wire, which I have accomplished.

Also, if you need to lead wire for long distance and have the room, leading duplex (2 wires in a jacket) makes it much easier than pulling 2 single wires. However, as in the YT video referenced, if trying to pull in a super tight space, 2 singles wires will work better.

The built sounds similar to 458, when you remove the panels of the sole there should be fiverglass channels (stringer?) where all wiring is hidden. The channels go both across the boat and along. There are a few access holes in 458 in there where you can see whats going on.  If those access holes are not helpful, drill more holes 1 inch or so in the fiberglass to faciliate snaking the wires.