Boat dock shore power

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Cleveland Apprentice

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Cleveland, Oh
This past weekend I've heard about a 19 year old killed by electrical current in water at Put in Bay Ohio. The cause was by his family's boat plugged into shore power. I have heard that shore power receptacles are not required to be gfci protected. I am not sure if that's the case but it seems like a no brainer to use gfci protection. Any thoughts on why shore power is not required to be gfci protected? Thanks

if you google search "19 year old killed by electric current in water" you will get several online articles about this tragic incident
 
555 now requires some ground fault protection, just not down to 5ma (people protection).

I agree with you that using a GFCI circuit is a no brainer, especially with all the reported shock problems.

Someone had said in a different thread that 555 is supposed to start applying to residential docks starting 2017 code, but I don't know for sure that is true.
 
This past weekend I've heard about a 19 year old killed by electrical current in water at Put in Bay Ohio. The cause was by his family's boat plugged into shore power. I have heard that shore power receptacles are not required to be gfci protected. I am not sure if that's the case but it seems like a no brainer to use gfci protection. Any thoughts on why shore power is not required to be gfci protected? Thanks

if you google search "19 year old killed by electric current in water" you will get several online articles about this tragic incident

120 20 amp outlets are GFCI protected

30 amp, and 240 v. 30 amp aren't.

and if you are on a 30 amp twist lock, which is
common shore power for most boats in the marina here,
and your boat leaks into the water, that is beyond the
scope of what the code can control, but not beyond what
can kill you.

i've seen a 80' chris craft aluminum hulled yachet leaking
10 amps into the water from a shore plug. the zincs, and
prop looked like soda crackers. so did every boats moored
around them.

that aluminum hull didn't do well at all, either. it was easy
to find any breaks in the antifoul hull coating, tho.
 
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