The "nuts" I think my friend was referring to was having BOTH breakers
and fuses. Larry made me feel a lot better about that, thank you.

The fuse block fits neatly into an unused space just inside the engine
room access where I could easily move the wires over from the main
panel. There wouldn't have been room for additional breakers.

I'll probably replace breakers in the main panel gradually. In cases
where the appropriate wire size runs to all sources and I replace
breakers with the right size, I may gradually retire the fuses one by
one. The fuses will also give me a chance to experiment and find the
lowest workable size for each load. With old wiring and an old boat, I
don't necessarily want to have the standard breaker size if the loads
being supplied don't demand it.

OTOH, the electrical panel is right under the companionway, (don't ask
me why) and I may never fully trust breakers that are exposed to that
much moisture. So far, I don't see a workable alternate location.

--

Roger Long



wrote in message
ups.com...
Of course you are not nuts. As long as you have appropriate
protection
whether it be breakers or fuses is fine. I do not quite understand
your
comments though. if you can fit appropriate sized fuses in the
appropriate places, you could have just as easily used breakers.
they
serve the same purpose. I just think breakers are so much easier and
even withstanding the fact they may be able to be bumped on or off i
can see a situation where your nav lights or maybe radar develops a
temporary overload etc where it would be much easier to reset a
breaker
rather than discover you do not have a replacement fuse.