mind gone blank - shore power lead

[ChattingLil]

just about to leave home to go to boat and need to stop off on the way and buy an adaptor and I can't remember which way is which for shore power. What is usual? Pontoon shore power is a female socket, right? so, my boat will have a male socket?

the more I think about it, the more my mind shuts down!

btw - I need an adaptor (or new plugs/sockets) because the boat I did an exchange with has a weird set up and I want to change it to what is standard, but in the meantime, need to plug in.

 

[dgadee]

Shore end of cable male. Boat end of cable female.

 

[richardbrennan]

You assume correctly, the pontoon will be a female socket and the boat will have a male socket. I think the general rule of thumb is that the live side will always be female.

 

[ChattingLil]

thanks - mind now reassured!

 

[David2452]

As above unless it is is a proper "marine" type like Hubbel et al in which case you will need to source the matching plug. For a standard 16a site type and if it has been done properly the boat inlet should have the male parts and the shore lead should have females so there are no live prongs if somebody plugs into a post before the boat, but best have a look when you get there to be certain.

 

[charles_reed]

In UK the boat generally needs a male 16amp plug - in many places this can be a red 32 amp plug.
Most French municipal marinas have a 10 amp 2/3 pin plug and some (to limit your draw) have a 2 pin 5 amp plug, though increasingly they're using 16 amp (blue) plugs.
Fortunately the blue 16 amp plug is the most common though, if you intend to travel, you need adaptors for all of the above.
I'll not go into the strange plug size they have in the Veneto - it's different to the rest of Italy.

 

[sailorman]

just about to leave home to go to boat and need to stop off on the way and buy an adaptor and I can't remember which way is which for shore power. What is usual? Pontoon shore power is a female socket, right? so, my boat will have a male socket?

the more I think about it, the more my mind shuts down!

btw - I need an adaptor (or new plugs/sockets) because the boat I did an exchange with has a weird set up and I want to change it to what is standard, but in the meantime, need to plug in.

the end you plug in on your lead is male

 

[NickRobinson]

Think of house sockets.....

If you can't touch metal it's live, a 'giver'

If you can, it's a 'receiver'

Ignoring French domestic earth pins n'est pas!

N

 

[l'escargot]

Or that you need to "plug in" your boat to the power supply, like you plug in anything else that needs power.

 

[DaveS]

In UK the boat generally needs a male 16amp plug - in many places this can be a red 32 amp plug.

Fortunately the blue 16 amp plug is the most common though, if you intend to travel, you need adaptors for all of the above.

That's not quite right. The international standard plug / socket range uses colour as a descriptor of voltage and physical size as a descriptor of current carrying capacity. So yellow = 110V, blue = 230V, red = 400V (3 phase). A 230V 32A plug is blue but physically bigger than a blue 230V 16A plug. It's a very logical system with different pin locations for different voltages to avoid unsafe combinations being coupled.