Hi people. After 58 years I finally decided to get a boat so I swapped my bike for a 4.3m runabout with a 40hp 2 stroke Mercury. While I've never owned a boat myself I've spent a fair bit of time on them... from fishing on my stepfather's boat when I was younger to spending several years working as a SCUBA instructor on diveboats. I've also done a lot of car mechanics and electrics, so I'm not scared of getting my hands dirty.
The boat I ended up with is about 20 years old and of course it's had technology added and taken away over the years and the wiring's a bit of a mess so I'm rewiring it, and eventually will upgrade it to a dual battery system. Currently everything seems to be fused, but they're all in-line fuses hidden behind bulkheads etc so I'm replacing them with a real fusebox with a negative bus bar (I'm aware of not using the hull as a return earth). The boat currently has a battery box with a kill switch and a 65A breaker, and a switch panel with six switches, but by the time I add a few bits and pieces I'll have more appliances than switches. So my question is do I need panel switches for appliances that have their own on/off switches such as the VHF radio, am/fm radio, etc, or can I just wire the devices directly to the fuse box and turn them on at the device the way you might with a car? I'm happy enough to buy a bigger switch panel if I need to, but if I can avoid the cost I will.
While I'm at it, compasses... the boat doesn't have one unlike every boat I've had anything to do with in the past. It does have a sounder (a Lowrance Elite 7ti) which has a GPS function, does this replace a compass or should I still have one as a backup? I!m not planning on crossing bars into open ocean, just messing about in Moreton Bay or Pumicestone Passage, visiting a few of the islands etc.
Oh also... the sounder apparently can connect to the VHF radio via NMEA 0183 if I get the uprated power cable... is this something worth spending the money on?
Thanks in advance for any info.
Matt