Is there a substitute for the grounding plate for 74 Hatteras 38 MY

When changing all the thruhull on my 38 I came across the two grounding plates on the hull in the aft section… they are expensive to replace… are they needed? Is there a substitute for them? Thanks in advance for your reply!!Thanks

Having two is interesting. You probably couldn't have asked a more polarizing and controversial question. Ground planes serve two purposes, 1 to add a means to shunt leaking high voltage to ground just like the ground in a home electrical system is attached to a water pipe and allows a dead short causing a breaker to trip thus protecting people aboard, but not so much for swimmers. 2 creates a low voltage equilibrium between all bonded metal in the water and within the boat and thus causing the attached zinc anode to corrode as opposed to the prop. Only you can see what condition the grounding and bonding systems are in and how they are wired up. do you need them? It depends on how you use the boat. You can immense them in a bucket of phosphoric acid and they will look as good as new in a few hours, they are pure copper after all. you might want to replace the bolts though. the bolts are bronze but one bolt of the bunch is gold plated to keep a nice strong electrical connection to the wiring and copper plate.

Probably Dyna plates they were put on for an antenna ground plane for the old AM radios pre VHF. They work with SSB but not as well as the copper mesh Hatteras later glassed into the cabin tops.

We are replacing headliner in the 46 and noticed the mesh. So it's a grounding plane for SSB?

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Originally Posted by madhatter1

We are replacing headliner in the 46 and noticed the mesh. So it's a grounding plane for SSB?

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Yes. You'll find the threaded connection rod sticking up inside the flybridge.

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Originally Posted by rsmith

Probably Dyna plates they were put on for an antenna ground plane for the old AM radios pre VHF. They work with SSB but not as well as the copper mesh Hatteras later glassed into the cabin tops.

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I made the assumption that a 1974 38 MY wouldn't be using SSB, but could have been. Figured someone tried to keep the high voltage ground and bonding system separate by using two plates.

I plan to use the boat as primarily housing when I sell my house… I don’t plan to go boarding or cruising… instead just keep in the slip at the marina… having said that are they essential… do I need to replace the grounding plates or can I go without them???Thanks