In the older days of telcom they used to run these pressurized cables, you can still find them in service, they run at at about 1-10 PSI. I always thought that was a cool system. If you ever see what looks to be a little propane tank next to some old phone equipment along side the road there is probably like a 2400 pair cable buried there and that device is probably a Pressure Transducer measuring pressure at that splice. I always thought pressurized electrical systems could be used more, there are some in hazardous location stuff in oil and gas work and MV and HV work but not as common as in telcom. I would think it would be especially well suited for aboard a ship in a area like you describe that gets washed down.
I know nothing about ship electrical or VFD's, but if you can pressurize it even to .3 PSI you'll know if you have a leak.