HarborMaster monitors critical systems on your boat. The first article in this series described the monitoring of your boat's battery systems. This article addresses shore power.

Once a shore power system has been installed in your boat, it quickly becomes both critical and indispensable. It is used to trickle charge batteries, maintain refrigeration, operate heaters in cold weather and air conditioners when it is hot, keep bait fresh for fishermen and make ice cubes for us all. A prolonged power outage can cause all sorts of problems.

The HarborMaster monitors AC power outage over a moving 24-hour period. When shore power has been out for a total specified period, the notification system will alert you by phone, fax,  SMS or e-mail.

Since your power requirement is unique to your boat, the length of the power outage period that triggers an alarm is a parameter that can be customized by the user. It can be as low as 30 minutes in a 24-hour period or as high as 24 hours in the 24-hour period. The factory default is a total of 12 hours in any 24-hour period.

Shore power is sensed by the HarborMaster at an AC outlet on your boat. A wall-plug AC to DC converter provides 12-volts DC which is continuously monitored by the HarborMaster. If AC outlets are at a premium on your boat, the AC/DC converter can be wired through a fuse at the AC circuit panel.

The HarborMaster monitors two aspects of shore power outage: the number of times the power is out and the cumulated duration of outage time. No matter how brief the outage is, it is monitored and counted. This information can be displayed on the HarborMaster screen at any time and is transmitted to our secure password-protected web site either on demand or at the end of each system Status Update period.

You can choose to have the HarborMaster transmit system Status Updates on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. In addition, the HarborMaster's two-way remote command capability allows you to request an unscheduled Status Update immediately on demand at any time. This feature also allows you to remotely acknowledge a power outage alarm and reset the counters from your PC over the Internet.

This article is part of a series that will illustrate how the HarborMaster Mark II puts you in control of your boat.