Re: Marine...
I worked a while doing marine electrical. I grew up in Rhode Island (The "Ocean State") so I have been around boats all of my life.
I worked for someone that installed electronics and lighting systems on custom sports fishing boats in the $500,000 and up range. Since they come from the factory with no accesories on them whatsoever, it was our job to outfit them with every kind of electronic gizmo you can imagine: radar, gps, fishfinders, radios, lights, autopilots, engine controls, etc etc. I have to say that it was very interesting and fun work!
Most everything is 12 volts DC, although with pleasure boats the way they are these days (loaded!), there is quite a bit of 120/240 onboard in additon to generators and air conditioning systems. There isn't an enforced code per se, but there is a marine "code" called the
ABYC standard .
As far as I know, there is no license required to work on pleasurecraft, however, that may be different on things like container ships and tankers. I'm not really sure. I'm pretty sure working on submarines requires some type of certification.
In this area (New England), there is a lot of marine electrical work to be found, however, it usually requires a huge amount of travel. So unless you live in area with a large amount of pleasure boats and/or shipbuilding going on, this work will be scarce.
