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New lighting technology can brighten your cabin
Interior Lighting Upgrade on pre 1995 Catalina 36s
I’ve always been attracted to boat interiors featuring lighter colored teak and brighter interiors. Luckily, my 1994 Catalina 36 came with the honey-colored teak, but seemed somewhat dimly lit, especially in the galley area and around the dinette table.
As a former professional photographer, I was very cognizant of both the brightness and the quality of light. Another factor when choosing lights for a boat is the amount of amp hours an electrical device consumes. I decided I would sacrifice some battery life to get a better “quality” of light. Quality of light to me is defined as both the softness or harshness of the beam (determined by reflector and bulb design), and the warmth (yellowish) or coolness (bluish) of the bulb.
As a short explanation, fluorescents are highly efficient lights from an electrical standpoint, but they produce an unfocused, non-contiguous spectrum of light that is perceived as very cool or bluish to the eye. They also cycle or flicker, which can bother some people.
Incandescent or halogen lights, on the other hand, produce a more pleasing warm tone of light and have a wide variety of reflector options, but they use more battery power.
Another option these days are LED lights. They are highly efficient from a battery usage standpoint, but the first versions produced a very cool light. I understand there are newer versions coming out with a warmer light.
I wanted
brighter lights for reading in the dinette area, so I decided to
replace the standard lights with the newer European design brass
lights made by ABI (model 410062 $23.00 @ Defender). These had the
advantage of producing a more focused light, and were rated for the
brighter 20 watt two-pin halogen bulbs. Replacement was simply a
matter of disconnecting the old fixtures and wiring in the new ones,
a two to three hour job. One downside is the 20 watt bulbs do take
more amps from the battery.
The other dimly light area of my boat was the sink and galley workspace. Catalina 36s produced after 1995 featured overhead lights in the galley area, but installing that type of light seemed like major surgery to the boat. I began to search for some sort of overhead track light that would be as unobtrusive as possible, and flexible enough to curve to the concave shape of the overhead. I found a household 12 volt track at Home Depot made by Linea. I ordered their LV108 P (white) eight-ft. track ($33.25), a L201P End Connector ($5.78), and two LV307P Mini Alto MR11 light fixtures ($25.00).
The first challenge was to get electricity to the track. Remember, on the 1994 model we don’t have the teak pole that goes to the ceiling in the area of the sink. My boat has what is considered the Mark 11 interior with no pole, so that wasn’t an option.
The shortest path was to run a two-pair wire from the electrical panel, straight up through a hole in the cabinet top, along the curve of the overhead shelf, then along the seam of where the bulkhead meets the hull of the boat to the horizontal teak trim piece above the windows.
Next I loosened the horizontal teak trim piece about the window (see the red arrow) so I could route out (using a Dremel motor tool) a groove in the back side of the teak to route the wire to the switch. It wasn’t that difficult, but you have to take it slow and be careful on your depth. That’s an expensive piece of teak to replace.
Now that I had power to the track, I wanted to mount a switch on the end plate so I could easily turn the lights on and off. After a lot of futzing around, I found a standard inline switch at Home Depot, took it apart, and extracted the white plastic switch mechanism. Then I measured the switch’s inside dimensions and took my trusty Dremel motor tool with the fine saw blade and very carefully cut a rectangular piece out of the top of the plastic end plate, and then pushed the switch mechanism into the hole from the top for a flush mount. I was a very tight fit with the wires, but I just made it. It actually looks like a factory made part.
The second to last step, installation of the overhead track, was fairly simple, I simply measured the distance across the cabin top, and then screwed in several 3/16” x 6 pan head stainless screws (make sure the screw head doesn’t hinder the movement of the track lights). When drilling pilot holes, first put a piece of tape over the fiberglass to minimize chipping and be extremely careful not to drill through the cabin top. The Linea track is plastic and will bend enough to fit the radius of the cabin top.
The final challenge was to conceal the white cable that I ran up the seam of the bulkhead and the cabin top side. I found a piece of standard teak channel trim and shaved off part of the right hand leg of the U-channel. It wouldn’t fit flat without this modification. Next problem was mounting the teak piece There simply wasn’t room for screws, so I just used Shoe Goo to glue the wire to the cabin side, and then the teak to the wire. Not elegant, but it does hold fairly well and won’t damage anything if I have to remove it. If I did the job again, I would trim the bottom horizontal teak trim piece below the Velcro button in the photo, and then extend the teak channel piece lower to hide that little section of white wire.
The overhead track lighting blends in fairly well with the white overhead, looks professional, and produces much needed light over the sink and dry storage area. I mounted two lights, but you could easily add another one to light the nav table area. The lights are also fully adjustable to light other nearby areas. I did order some broader beam width (10 degree) halogen lights to produce a softer light over the area.
- Walter