Marine electronics in Cold Spring Harbor, for boats that live on a mooring.
Cold Spring Harbor is deep, protected and largely a mooring field. Which means most of the boats here spend the season with no shore power at all — and that changes every conversation about electronics.
We come out by tender. Solar, charging, battery monitoring and the electronics that run off them, installed by NMEA-certified installers to ABYC standards.
The mooring problem
Nothing is charging your boat while you are at work.
A boat in a slip is on a charger all week. A boat on a mooring in Cold Spring Harbor is not — it is sitting there with a bilge pump, an alarm, and whatever electronics draw current on standby, quietly taking amp-hours out of a bank that nothing is putting back.
Over a season, that pattern does two things. It leaves you starting most weekends from a partly discharged bank, and it kills batteries early, because a lead-acid bank repeatedly held below full sulphates and loses capacity permanently.
People usually notice this as "the batteries are no good again" and buy new ones. New batteries into an unchanged situation do exactly the same thing. The problem was never the batteries.
The fix that needs no intervention
Solar sized for what your boat actually draws.
For a mooring boat, solar is not about running a microwave. It is about covering the standing draw so the bank is genuinely full when you row out on Saturday, and stays that way across the week.
Sizing it properly means measuring the actual standing draw rather than guessing from a table, then working from how long the boat typically sits. That number is usually smaller than people fear — which is good news, because a modest, well-installed array with a decent controller solves the whole problem quietly.
- Measured first — we find your real standing draw before recommending panel capacity
- Mounted to suit the boat — rail, arch, or walkable semi-rigid panels where deck space is the constraint
- Proper MPPT control, wired with correct gauge and fusing to ABYC standards
- Charge profile matched to your battery chemistry, so the bank actually reaches full
Ready to talk? Or keep reading below.
Turning guesswork into a number
A voltmeter is not telling you what you think.
Battery voltage under load is close to useless as a measure of how much you have left. It sags when something switches on, recovers when it switches off, and gives a confident-looking number that bears little relation to remaining capacity.
A shunt-based monitor counts what actually goes in and out. It tells you amp-hours consumed, what is being drawn right now, and roughly how long you have. On a mooring boat that is the difference between managing your power and discovering a problem at the least convenient moment.
It is also the fastest way to find a parasitic draw. More than once we have fitted a monitor to diagnose "bad batteries" and found a bilge pump float switch cycling, or an old stereo drawing current it had no business drawing.
What it costs
Rates, including tender trips.
- $280 first hour, one man — travel up to 30 minutes each way and setup included
- $140/hr after, in 15-minute steps
- No 4-hour minimum, no setup line
- Parts at cost plus markup, quoted before ordering
- 60-day labor warranty; manufacturer warranty on equipment
Mooring work is billed the same way as dock work. What we ask is a clear description up front so we bring everything in one trip — a second run out to the boat is time you would be paying for.
ABYC Electrical Standards
Empire Wind NETP Approved Vendor
Fully Insured
$280 First Hour · $140/hr After
No Minimums
60-Day Labor Warranty
You Call, You Get The Installer
North Shore owners
What people say about honest advice.
Chris M. — Mako 21 LTS
★★★★★
I asked LIME whether I needed Starlink or a Pepwave LTE setup for my boat — they were honest that for my use (mostly inshore, occasional Block Island run) the LTE router was the smarter call. They installed it perfectly. I respect that they gave me the right answer instead of selling me the bigger ticket item.
Mike R. — Grady-White 306
★★★★★
Had LIME install Starlink Standard on my Grady-White 306 with a custom stainless arch mount. They wired it direct to 12V so it runs off the batteries — no inverter, no shore power needed. The whole job was clean and professional. Signal is rock solid from the dock to 80 miles out.
Gary M. — Albemarle 280
★★★★★
Had an NMEA 2000 issue no one else could solve. LIME found a bad terminator that was causing intermittent GPS drops. Fixed in two hours. Would have cost me a week chasing the wrong problem.
Cold Spring Harbor questions
Power and charging questions, answered.
My boat is on a mooring with no shore power. How do I keep the batteries up?Solar, in almost every case. A modest panel sized to cover your standing draw — bilge pump, alarm, electronics on standby — will keep a bank topped up between weekends without any intervention from you. It is not about running appliances; it is about the bank being full when you arrive instead of at 60%.
Solar, in almost every case. A modest panel sized to cover your standing draw — bilge pump, alarm, electronics on standby — will keep a bank topped up between weekends without any intervention from you. It is not about running appliances; it is about the bank being full when you arrive instead of at 60%.
How much solar do I actually need?
Less than most people expect for maintenance, more than they expect for real consumption. The honest way to size it is from your measured standing draw and how long the boat sits between visits, not from the panel's sticker rating. We measure rather than estimate, because an undersized array is money spent on a problem you still have.
Can you get to a boat on a mooring in Cold Spring Harbor?
Yes, by tender. Tell us beforehand what the job involves so we can bring everything needed in one trip — a second run out is wasted time you are paying for. If a job genuinely needs shore power for testing, we will tell you honestly that it is better done at a dock for the day.
My batteries were replaced two years ago and are already tired. Why?
Usually chronic undercharging. A bank that is repeatedly brought to 80% and left there sulphates and loses capacity, and on a mooring with no shore power that is the default outcome unless something is actively charging it. New batteries into the same situation will do the same thing. Fix the charging, then talk about batteries.
Is a battery monitor worth it on a smaller boat?
It is one of the best-value things you can fit. Voltage under load tells you almost nothing useful. A shunt-based monitor tells you amp-hours consumed and what is actually being drawn, which turns power from a guess into a number — and on a mooring boat, guessing is how you end up not starting.
Stop buying batteries every other season.
Tell us how the boat sits and what is aboard. Often the answer is a small panel and a monitor, not another bank.