Marine Cable

Overview

Marine cable is built to a different standard than building wire: flame-retardant, often low-smoke insulation, and construction that tolerates constant low-level vibration and damp conditions that would degrade ordinary cable over a vessel's service life. Runs are typically shorter and more tightly bent than shore-side installation, routed through cable transits at watertight and fire boundaries, so the cable's minimum bend radius and its transit's fire rating are both selected together rather than decided alone. Conductor and sheath colour follow marine wiring conventions rather than the codes used ashore, which is what lets an electrician trace a circuit correctly during a refit years after the original installation.