Marine electrician on Long Island — mobile, certified, at your slip.
When something electrical on the boat stops working, you need someone who will find the cause rather
than swap parts until it goes away. We are a mobile marine electrician
serving all of Long Island — DC systems, batteries, charging, wiring and marine electronics,
diagnosed and repaired at your dock.
NMEA certified, working to ABYC electrical standards, fully insured. When you call, you are calling
the person who does the work — not a dispatcher and not a rotating crew.
The Work
What a marine electrician on Long Island actually gets called for.
Boat electrical work is not house wiring that happens to be near water. Everything lives in salt air,
vibrates constantly, runs on DC, and is bonded to metal sitting in seawater. The failure modes are
different, the standards are different, and the fixes are different. Nearly every call we get comes
down to one of the six things below.
Power That Comes And Goes
A display that reboots, a pump that quits at the worst moment, electronics that die over a wave. Almost always a connection or a voltage drop, not the device everyone wants to replace.
Batteries & Charging
A bank that will not hold overnight, a charger that stopped charging, an alternator not keeping up. We load test the bank and measure what is actually reaching it before anyone buys batteries.
Corrosion & Bad Grounds
Green lugs, chalky terminals, a ground that floats. The single most common cause of electrical failure on a Long Island boat, and the one most often patched over instead of fixed.
Wiring & Rewiring
Undersized runs, unsupported cable, wire nuts below the sole, decades of add-ons stacked on one circuit. We re-terminate to ABYC standard and label what we touch.
Inverters & DC Distribution
Inverters, DC panels, breakers, bus bars and fusing — sized correctly, protected correctly, and wired so the next person can work on it.
Electronics That Were Installed Badly
A lot of our work is repairing someone else’s install. We will tell you straight whether it is worth tracing or worth pulling a clean new run.
Being Straight With You
What we don’t touch — and who should.
"Marine electrician" covers a lot of ground, and we would rather tell you where our line is than take
a job we should not. We work on the boat’s DC side — batteries,
charging, distribution, electronics, instrumentation and the wiring that ties them together.
We do not work on vessel AC panels or shore-power wiring. That is
licensed electrician work, it carries real liability, and doing it without the licence would not be
fair to you. Same with autopilot hydraulic drives and pulling out finished joinery or mirrored
bulkheads — we coordinate with your yard, builder or dealer and say clearly in writing what falls
outside our scope. You get a straight answer up front instead of a half-finished job and a surprise.
We handle
- DC wiring, rewiring and re-termination to ABYC standard
- Battery banks, charging systems, alternators, isolators
- Inverters, DC panels, breakers, bus bars and fusing
- Intermittent fault tracing and voltage-drop testing
- Corrosion, grounding and bonding faults
- Marine electronics installation, integration and repair
- NMEA 2000 backbones, instruments and senders
We refer out
- Vessel AC panels and shore-power wiring — licensed electrician
- Generator and air-conditioning mechanical work
- Autopilot hydraulic drive units — dealer or yard
- Removing finished joinery or mirrored bulkheads — builder
- Engine ECU and drive-train diagnostics — engine dealer
Naming this up front is not us dodging work. It is how the job gets finished properly by
whoever should be doing it.
Diagnosis
Finding the fault instead of guessing at it.
The expensive way to fix a boat electrical problem is to replace parts until it stops. That is how
people end up with a new battery bank, a new charger and the same fault — because the fault was a
corroded lug the whole time. We work it with a meter and a diagram.
Intermittent faults are connections
A component that fails intermittently is rare. A connection that fails intermittently is normal —
it works cold, fails warm, works on a flat sea, fails in a chop. We load test under real current and
measure voltage drop across each run rather than checking continuity on a dead circuit, which is what
makes a bad joint look fine.
That means the first visit is often diagnosis rather than repair, and we say so before you book. It
also means when we do replace something, we can tell you why.
Salt air is the real enemy
Long Island boats live in salt air eight months a year and sit in it the other four. Dissimilar metals,
a damp bilge and a bonding system doing its job all add up to corrosion at every termination. Most
"electrical gremlins" on a ten-year-old boat are twenty corroded terminals, not one bad box.
We re-terminate with the right lug, the right crimp and heat-shrink, and protect it — so the repair
lasts more than a season.
Our Work
Recent electrical work.
DC distribution, network backbones and engine-space wiring — photographed on real jobs across Long Island.
Ready to talk? Or keep reading below.
What We Work On
Marine electrical systems we service.
Most jobs are some combination of these, and on a boat they are all connected — which is why a
charging fault shows up as an electronics problem.
Battery Banks
Flooded, AGM and lithium. Sizing, wiring, isolation and monitoring — plus honest advice on whether a lithium conversion is worth it for how you actually use the boat.
Charging Systems
Shore chargers, alternators, DC-DC and solar. If the bank is not holding, the answer is usually in what is charging it rather than the batteries themselves.
DC Panels & Distribution
Panels, breakers, bus bars, fusing and the runs between them — sized and protected to standard, and labeled so it can be worked on later.
Inverters
Sized to the load you actually run, wired off the house bank, fused correctly. We stay on the DC side and coordinate with an electrician if AC tie-in is needed.
Instruments & Senders
Gauges reading wrong, tank senders lying, engine data not reaching the display. Often a sender or a ground rather than the instrument.
NMEA 2000 Networks
Backbones, drops, terminators and power injection. A network built wrong works fine until you add one more device — then nothing works.
How It Runs
How a call actually goes.
No mystery and no runaround. Four steps, and you know the cost basis before anyone comes out.
1 — You Call Or Email
Tell us the boat, the marina and what it is doing. Photos of the panel and the fault help more than anything — email them and we can often narrow it before we arrive.
2 — We Come To The Boat
At your slip, mooring or yard, anywhere in Nassau or Suffolk. Travel up to 30 minutes each way is already in the first hour.
3 — We Diagnose It Properly
Meter, diagram and load testing. You get told what is actually wrong, what it takes to fix, and what it will roughly run — before we carry on.
4 — We Fix It And Label It
Repaired to ABYC standard, terminated properly, labeled, and left so the next person can follow it. Sixty-day labor warranty.
One Person, Start To Finish
The person on the phone is the person on the boat. Nothing gets lost between a dispatcher, a salesman and a tech who has never seen the job.
Parts We Supply
We install what we supply, at cost plus markup. It keeps the warranty and the responsibility in one place instead of arguing over whose part failed.
Where We Work
A mobile marine electrician covering all of Long Island.
Nassau and Suffolk, both shores, out to Montauk and the North Fork. We come to the boat — you do not
deliver it anywhere. Travel up to 30 minutes each way is included in the first hour; past that it is
$40 per half hour per man, door to door, and we tell you before we book.
South Shore
Freeport, Amityville, Babylon, Lindenhurst, Islip, Patchogue, Bay Shore, Massapequa, Merrick and the Great South Bay marinas.
North Shore
Port Washington, Manhasset Bay, Glen Cove, Oyster Bay, Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington, Northport and Port Jefferson.
East End
Sag Harbor, Montauk, Greenport, Southold, Hampton Bays, Westhampton and the Shelter Island harbors.
Costs Up Front
What a marine electrician costs on Long Island.
Time and materials, always. Marine electrical work is diagnostic by nature — anyone quoting a firm
price for a fault they have not seen is guessing, and you pay for the guess either way. Here is the
rate, so you can do the arithmetic yourself.
$280 First Hour
One installer. Includes travel up to 30 minutes each way and setup. There is no separate setup line and no four-hour minimum.
$140/hr After
Billed in 15-minute steps, so a 20-minute fix costs 20 minutes. Two-man crew is $440 first hour then $220/hr when the job needs it.
Parts & Travel
Parts at cost plus markup. Travel past 30 minutes each way is $40 per half hour per man, door to door. Multi-day work restarts the first-hour rate each day.
Shop, admin and R&D time is $125/hr and CAD or design work is $140/hr — never billed at the field
rate. Fair pricing, with the cost basis given to you before the work starts.
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
What Customers Say
Real reviews from real boat owners.
Frank S.
★★★★★
I had my marine electronics installed by Dave and did a great job. I especially appreciated that the final price matched the estimate, no hidden costs.
Chavelli T.
★★★★★
Dave and his team are professional, responsive and transparent. Couldn't ask for anything more. Working with them was great; the attention to detail and willingness to communicate and problem solve meant our project got done on time despite the short notice.
Rich F.
★★★★★
Great install by David and his team! Complete electronics update, with new panels, gauges & switches. David is very meticulous, detail oriented in his planning and installation.
Questions
Marine electrician FAQ.
Are you a licensed electrician?Not for household or shore-side AC work, and we do not claim to be. We are NMEA certified and work to ABYC electrical standards on the boat’s DC systems — batteries, charging, distribution, electronics and instrumentation. Vessel AC panels and shore-power wiring are licensed-electrician work and we refer that out rather than take it on.
Not for household or shore-side AC work, and we do not claim to be. We are NMEA certified and work to ABYC electrical standards on the boat’s DC systems — batteries, charging, distribution, electronics and instrumentation. Vessel AC panels and shore-power wiring are licensed-electrician work and we refer that out rather than take it on.
What does a marine electrician actually fix on a boat?
Most calls are one of a handful of things: electronics that lose power intermittently, a battery bank that will not hold charge, corroded or undersized wiring, a charger or inverter that has stopped working, instruments reading wrong, or a new install that was never done properly. We trace it to the actual cause instead of replacing parts and hoping.
Do you come to the boat?
Yes — that is the whole model. We work at your slip, mooring or yard across Nassau and Suffolk. The boat does not move and you do not lose a weekend delivering it somewhere.
How much does a marine electrician cost on Long Island?
Time and materials, never a fixed price. $280 covers the first hour for one installer, including travel up to 30 minutes each way and setup, then $140/hr billed in 15-minute steps. There is no four-hour minimum and no separate setup charge. Travel beyond 30 minutes each way is $40 per half hour per man, door to door.
Can you find an intermittent electrical fault?
That is the most common thing we get called for, and it is the hardest to do remotely. We work through it on the boat with a clamp meter and a wiring diagram — load testing, voltage drop across runs, checking grounds and terminations. Intermittent faults are almost always a connection, not a component.
Do you fix corrosion and bad grounds?
Yes. Green terminals, chalky lugs and a floating ground cause more electrical failures on Long Island boats than anything else — salt air plus dissimilar metals. We clean it up properly, re-terminate to standard and protect it, rather than putting a new ring terminal on a corroded wire.
Will you work on wiring somebody else installed?
Yes, and a lot of our work is exactly that. We will tell you honestly whether it is worth repairing or worth redoing. Sometimes tracing and fixing someone else’s shortcut costs more than pulling a clean new run.
What warranty comes with electrical work?
Sixty days on our labor. Any equipment we supply carries the manufacturer’s own warranty, which on most marine brands is two years or better.
Something electrical not working right?
Tell us the boat, the marina and what it is doing. Photos of the panel help. We will tell you what it
is likely to be and what it takes to sort out.