J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Wiring degradation

I've been attempting to correct some electrical problems on hull #359. Looking into the wire bundle that leads to the mast for the various components there, I found that the copper wires themselves were almost black. This appears to be copper corrosion due to the moist marine environment. Has anybody else experienced this condition? The wires appear to still carry power but there has to be losses involved (higher resistance). The bundle has extra length in it so I worked my way up the wire looking for fresh copper. Never found any. I'm trying to decide if a complete rewire is necessary.

Comments appreciated.

Experienced similar problems on my 1980 boat #201. In 1998 I replaced and rerouted just about all of the wiring in the boat because I was going cruising in Mexico and didn't want any problems in the middle of nowhere. A lot of the wiring I pulled out was in bad shape. The rewiring was not difficult but quite tedious and time consuming because some disassembly of the boat was required for access. If you decide to rewire any part of your boat, I can probably tell you what worked for me, wire gage, routing, etc.

Also check your main power wiring for degradation. I started seeing some electrolysis on my prop (hull #447) about a month ago when cleaning the bottom (even though there was still some zinc left). Then two weeks later, the engine would not start. I tracked it down to the 1 gauge wire coming from my battery switch and the ground from the batteries to the engine being rotted more than half way through. I changed all 1 gauge wire in the boat a few days later.
I just pulled my prop yesterday to have it reconditioned (hopefully its not gone too far)

Alan,
The factory saved some money by not using tinned copper wire. I've got black coated copper conductors in my mast wiring too. To work with them I gently scraped until it was shiny & attached new connections. So far so good.