ac troubleshooting

I'm getting aquainted with my "new" 1955 MONK and I ran into a lil problem that I'm having trouble solving. When departing I accidently kicked a bilge heater cord out of socket...I now have zero shore power to any of my plugs, and I've checked the shore to boat cord..it's good, I have current and when I flip my refrigerator breaker i have power to the fridge. I have a 60amp cardboard fuse on board that i replaced, but I can't get any plugs to work. The shore cord goes into a "square D" breaker box with 2 breaker slots, but there are no breakers, just wired connections that have nametags..like four wires on the left that are labeled "plugs" and 2 wires right that are labeled fridge. From this box I have wires going to a buss that has labeled breakers like 2 at the top labeled 30 amp main connected to one that says reverse polarity..under that a toggle for refridgerator, one for plugs, and one for my battery charger...the charger lights up..but the charger isn't charging, and the 30 amp and reverse polarity switch doesn't light up as it did prior to my kick. I'm mystified with this. Is there a set way or procedure to go thru the wiring following a guideline of sorts? I'm thinking there must be another breaker someplace but I've done a good job of covering all 36 feet of boat and it just seems like spaghetti to me... any ideas?

 

If it's "spaghetti . ." to you, it's clear you need an electrician. Are there an GFCI's lurking in your receptacle circuits? Have they tripped and killed everything down stream of them?

 

Thanx !! and LOL you are correct I have contacted a function specialist to help me solve my riddle. I have not seen any gfci's but since the boat is an "oldie" I'm fairly certain that I'm going to start all over and get this tub up to code. Funny thing about restoring boats, at a certain point there's no arguing about safety and operational "upgrades". I don't think state of the art is a requisite, but grounding, breakers, and color codes are definitely in the future for this old girl. Thanx again PAR, I've read many of your posts and you seem to be a fund of hard won knowledge. I can honestly say that THE best money spent on the boat so far has been my subscription to boatdesign!! At 56 I feel like the new kid on the block.

 

You are the "new kid on the block", get over it, now get back to work . . .

 

You say you kicked a plug out of its socket and now you dont have power.

Ok well its got to be something in the kick (way to go Capt Obvious).

Have you checked the wires in the back of the socket, it could be wired as a ring main meaning one break and all the sockets go out.

 

problem solved

Well PAR, I took your advice and got some immersion therapy via the web and a saavy sparky I know, and reviewed my wiring start to finish, and Frosty, you are absolutely correct, I found the first plug circuit away from the blue sky tripless breaker panel, and after removing the microwave plug and nitelite, I found it to be a gfci socket, I pulled the SP cord from the dock main and then removed the "old" plug, replaced it with a new model, and am happy to report that all is well and I once again have warmth,lights, and bilge heat. Appreciation is extended !!