50Amp Receptacle Neutral vs Ground - Baffled!?

[MVCaprice]

One of our Hubbell 50Amp shore power receptacles needed some maintenance recently and when I pulled the exterior electrical panel apart I noticed something that I wanted to understand more about.

Basically both 50 amp receptacles in each exterior panel on both sides of the boat have two hot leads (6 Gauge), one Neutral (6 Gauge) and one ground (8 Gauge). In all cases for the 50Amp receptacles the white / neutral wire is not connected at either the distribution panel or the receptacles. In the Hatteras schematics the neutral/ white wire is noted to not be connected on either end so this is how the boat was shipped.

My question is....Why would they do this? Could they not bond the ground and neutral at the panel?

[Cricket]

The isolation transformer(s) make their own neutral so the white wire (neutral) isn't needed. Safest way to go.

[MVCaprice]

Sorry for the duplicate thread guys. It looks like this was already covered here: http://www.samsmarine.com/forums/sho...on+transformer