Does your boat's battery area look anything like the one below? If so, we need to talk because you have a few problems. But, rest assured our friends at Blue Sea Systems have come up with a solution for this mess with their new SafetyHub 250 fuse block and remote switch set up.



The Safety Hub, shown below takes care of the age old problem of how to properly fuse and connect multiple circuits that you may want to supply power to directly from the battery and maybe leave active even though you've shut down the primary power supplying the balance of your electrical loads on board. As a bonus, it'll even help to tidy up the mess you see above. You see the ABYC has a Standard that states that no more than four  terminals can be connected to any one terminal stud. I'm not sure what the count is in the photo above, but I think its safe to say more than four.



 The SafetyHub has fully waterproof plug in connectors for the harness assemblies shown at the top of the unit and the fuse holders are contained in a waterproof and ignition protected rated box shown just below the harnesses. What this whole package does is let you consolidate your circuits at one point that is designed to truly accept multiple hook-ups, not wrapped around a wing-nutted battery post as the lead photo shows. It provides an easy way to properly provide circuit protection and centralize it rather than having fuses hidden all over the boat, or none at all as is probably the case in the lead photo.


With a street price of just $199.99 the Blue Sea SafetyHub finally provides a safe, proper way to deal with the mess in that lead photo, which comes from my "shop of horrors" collection of real boat don't do its. To see a video of the SafetyHub and all it can do for your boat, click over to the Blue Sea website at: http://bluesea.com/


 

Written by: Ed Sherman
Ed Sherman is a regular contributor to boats.com, as well as to Professional Boatbuilder and Cruising World, where he previously was electronics editor. He also is the curriculum director for the American Boat and Yacht Council. Previously, Ed was chairman of the Marine Technology Department at the New England Institute of Technology. Ed’s blog posts appear courtesy of his website, EdsBoatTips.